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THEOLOGICAL ESSAYS 



■ 

WILLIAM G. T. SHEDD, D.D., 

ROOSEVELT PROFESSOR OF SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY IN UNION 



■^COPYRIG^ 



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1877. 









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PEEFACE 



The substance of this volume has been before the public some 
twenty years or more. The opinions expressed in it relate to 
some of the most important and difficult themes in theology 
and theological philosophy. The editions through which it has 
passed prove that there is a considerable circle of readers who 
are interested in such problems, and in that particular mode of 
presentation in which they here appear. The author has seized 
the opportunity afforded by a new publication to revise and 
enlarge these papers. No change, however, has been made in 
the dogmatic positions. The reader will find the historical 
Calvinism defended in the essays upon Original Sin and Atone- 
ment ; yet with an endeavor to ground these cardinal themes in 
the absolute principles of reason, as seen in the nature of both 
God and Man. Sin must take its origin, from first to last, in 
the finite will, and atonement is the necessary requirement of 
eternal justice. In these two essays, the writer, if he has done 
nothing else, has at least shown the sincerity of his belief that 
theology and philosophy have no inherent contradiction, and 
that the more exact and strict type of theology is the one of all 
which is most defensible at the bar of reason and logic ; agree- 
ing with Selden, that " without school divinity a divine knows 
nothing logically, nor will be able to satisfy a rational man out 
of the pulpit." 



VI PREFACE. 

The essay upon Evolution was first published in 1856, under 
the title of " The Philosophy of History." This has been re- 
cast, amplified, and carefully revised. The recent misuse to 
which the doctrine of evolution has been put by the sceptical 
physics of the day, has imparted a fresh interest to the subject. 
The author, in his discussion, discriminates the idea of evolution 
from that of creation, and from that of improvement or normal 
progress — with both of which it has been identified and con- 
founded — and having evinced that an evolution is never crea- 
tive, or originant from nothing, shows the applicability of the 
term either to an improvement or to a deterioration, either to a 
development of good or to a development of evil. In this way, 
a doctrine which of late has been violently forced into the ser- 
vice of pantheism is seen to be in harmony with the first truths 
of theism. 

The remaining essays in the volume are somewhat more popu- 
lar in their tone and contents. That upon the influence of 
Theological Studies, the author is glad to know, has given to 
some minds an impulse towards the ministry, and the service of 
the Church. The article upon the influence of Symbols, though 
in its form having a prevailing reference to a particular denom- 
ination, owing to the circumstances of its preparation, has a 
universal bearing, particularly at a time when the question 
respecting the value and need of creed statements is being 
raised. The subject of Clerical Education is examined, first, in 
reference to the need of its being scientific and professional, in 
distinction from lay education ; and secondly, in reference to the 
duty incumbent upon the Church to facilitate it by institutions 
and endowments. 

It will thus be seen that the contents of this volume are 
theological, either theoretically or practically. The writer for 



PREFACE. Vll 

more than a quarter of a century has been engaged in theologi- 
cal instruction, which has overflowed, more or less, into author- 
ship. An author in the more abstruse departments of litera- 
ture gradually makes his own circle of readers, as a logical 
preacher gradually forms his own congregation. Both have the 
advantage of homogeneousness in readers and hearers, and 
escape the evils of a miscellaneous concourse. To that circle 
upon whom from experience he finds he may rely, and whose 
favorable verdict is his chief concern, the writer would ex- 
press his hearty thanks for their past interest in his thoughts, 
and the hope that he may ever continue to retain it. 

Union Theological Seminaby, 
New Yokk, Nov. 1, 1877. 



CONTENTS 



PAGHB 

The method, and influence, op Theological Studies . . 7 
The nature, and influence, of the Historic Spirit. ... 53 
The idea of Evolution defined, and applied to His- 
tory „ 121 

The doctrine of Original Sin 211 

The Atonement a satisfaction for the ethical nature 

of both God and Man. 265 

Symbols and Congregationalism 319 

Clerical Education 355 



THE METHOD, AND INFLUENCE, 01 
THEOLOGICAL STUDIES. 



A DISCOURSE DELIVERED BEFORE THE LITERARY SOCIETIES OF THE 
UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT, AUGUST 5 3 1845. 



Gentlemen of the Societies : 

The subject to which I invite your attention is : 
Tlie method^ and influence, of Theological Studies. 

Theology more than any other science, suffers from 
false views of its scope and contents. In the opinion of 
many, it is supposed to have little or no connection with 
other sciences, and to exert but a very small and unim- 
portant influence upon other departments of human 
knowledge. Its contents are supposed to be summed 
up in the truths of natural theology. It is thought to be 
that isolated and lifeless science which looks merely at 
the natural attributes of God and man, and which con- 
sequently brings to view no higher relations, and no 
deeper knowledge, than those of mere nature. Of course, 
for such minds theology must be a very unimportant and 
simple science, treating merely of those superficial qual- 
ities which do not reach into the depths of God and man, 
and of those merely secondary and temporal relation- 

(?) 



8 THE METHOD, AND INFLUENCE, 

ships that rest upon them. Said a member of the Direc- 
tory appointed by France during its Revolution to re- 
model Christianity, " I want a simple religion : one with 
a couple of doctrines." Theology, as understood by 
many, is the science of the French Director's religion. 

But such is not the scope, or the character, of that 
" sacred and inspired divinity " which Lord Bacon as- 
serts to be " the sabbath and port of men's labors and 
peregrinations." Nature ; the natural attributes of God 
and man, and the natural laws and relations of creation 
forms but a minor and insignificant part of its subject 
matter. This lower region of being is but the suburb. 
The metropolis and royal seat of theology is the super- 
natural world ; a region full of moral being, sustaining 
most profound and solemn relations to reason and law. 

Before proceeding, then, to speak of the true method 
of theological study, and of its great and noble influ- 
ences, it will be needful to discuss more at large the 
real spirit and character of the science itself; and for this 
somewhat abstract discussion, I bespeak your forbearing 
and patient attention. It is needed in order to a clear ap- 
prehension of the enlarging and elevating influence of the 
science. Far am I from recommending to the educated 
man, the pursuit of those seemingly religious studies 
which never carry him out of the sphere of natural the- 
ology, and which cannot awaken enthusiasm of feeling 
or produce profundity of thought. I am pleading for 
those really theological studies, which by means of their 
supernatural element and character give nerve to the in- 
tellect and life to the heart. 

Theology is the science of the supernatural. That we 
may obtain a clear knowledge of its essential character, 
let us for a moment consider the distinction between the 
natural and the supernatural. 



OF THEOLOGICAL STUDIES. 9 

That which makes these different from each other in 
kind, so that the line which divides them divides the 
universe into two distinct worlds, is this fact: — the 
natural has no religious element in it, while the super- 
natural is entirely composed of this element. There is 
and there can be in mere nature nothing religious. 
There is and there can be in that which is supernatural 
nothing that is not religious.* When we have said this. 
we have given the essential difference between the nat- 
ural and supernatural. 

The common notion that by the natural is meant the 
material and visible, and by the supernatural, the imma- 
terial and invisible, is false. Nature may be as invisible 
and immaterial as is spirit. Who ever saw or ever will 
see the natural forces of gravitation, electricity, and mag- 
netism ? Who ever saw or ever will see that natural 
principle of life, of which all outward and material na- 
ture is but the manifestation ? Back of this world of 
nature which we apprehend by the five senses, there is 
an invisible world which is nature still ; which is not su- 
pernatural ; neither the object of supernatural science nor 
of supernatural interests, because there is no moral ele- 
ment in it. When we have stripped the world of its 
materiality, and have dissolved all that is visible into 
unseen forces and vital laws, we have not reached any 
higher region than that of nature. We have not yet 
entered the supernatural and religious world. He who 
worships the vital principle or adores the force of gravity; 
nay, he who has no higher emotions than those of the 
natural religionist, which are called forth by the beauty 



* Religion is from religo: — natural laws have no religious, or binding 
force, and in the sphere of nature there can be no such things as duty, guilt 
or praiseworthiness. 



10 THE METHOD, AND INFLUENCE, 

and glory of visible nature, or by the cloudy and mystic 
awfulness of invisible nature, is as really an idolater, a? 
is the most debased heathen who bows down before a 
visible and material idol. And that system of thought 
which never rises into the world of moral or supernatural 
reality, is as truly material (whatever may be its profes- 
sions to the contrary), as is the most open and avowed 
materialism. 

It seems like stating truisms to make such statements as 
these ; and yet some of the most seductive and far-reach- 
ing errors in philosophy and theology have arisen from 
the non-recognition, or the denial, of any thing highei 
than invisible nature. Ideal Pantheism, a system receiv- 
ed by minds of a really profound order, and which boastk 
of its spirituality, results from the error in question. 
Hence, although it admits of, and produces, a mystic 
adoration and a vague dreamy awe, it is utterly incom- 
patible with really spiritual feeling and truly moral 
emotion. 

But the reality, and nature, of the distinction between 
the natural and supernatural, is still more clearly seen 
by a contemplation of the Divine attributes ; partly be- 
cause at this point the distinction itself is more marked 
and plain, and partly because from this point the vital 
errors in theological and philosophical science take their 
start. 

Although, at first sight, it may appear bold and irrev- 
erent, yet a thorough investigation will show that it re- 
sults in the only true fear and adoration of God, to say 
that his natural attributes considered by themselves are 
of no importance at all for a moral being. Taken by 
themselves, they have no religious quality, and therefore, 
as such, cannot be the ground of theological science or 
religious feeling. Considered apart from his supernatural 



OF THEOLOGICAL STUDIES. 11 

attributes, what meaning have the omnipresence, the 
omnipotence, and even the adaptive intelligence, of the 
Deity, for me as a religious being ? Of what interest, is 
the possessor of these merely natural attributes, to me as 
a rational and moral being, until I know the supernat- 
ural character and person which reside in them, and make 
them the vehicle of their operations ? I may see the ex- 
hibitions of Infinite Power in the heavens above me, and 
on the earth around me ; I may detect the work of an 
Infinite Intelligence in this world of matchless design 
and order ; but what are these isolated qualities to me as 
one who possesses moral reason and sustains supernatural 
relations ? Let that Infinite Power thunder and flash 
through the skies, and let that Infinite Intelligence clothe 
the world in beauty and glory; these merely natural 
attributes are nothing to me, in a religious point of view, 
until I know who wields them, and what supernatural and 
holy attributes make them their bearer and agent. Then 
will I fear spiritually, and then will I adore morally. 

This fundamental distinction between the natural and 
the supernatural is of vital importance to theological sci- 
ence. If not clearly seen and rigidly recognized in the- 
ology, this science comes to be nothing more than an 
investigation of the natural attributes of the Deity, and 
treats merely of those relations of man to the Creator, 
which the vilest reptile that crawls has in common with 
him. For if we set aside the supernatural attributes of 
God, man sustains only the same relations to him that 
the brute does. He, in common with the brutes that per- 
ish, is the creature of the Divine Power, and in common 
with them is sustained by the Divine Intelligence ; that 
attribute which causes merely natural wants to be sup- 
plied by their correlative objects. The mere superven- 
tion of consciousness will make no difference between; 



12 THE METHOD, AND INFLUENCE, 

man and brute in relation to the Deity, unless conscious- 
ness bring with it the knowledge of his higher supernat- 
ural attributes. If we set aside his relations to the Wis- 
dom, Holiness, Justice and Mercy of God, we find man 
on a level with brute existence in all respects. He 
comes into being, reaches his maturity, declines, and dies, 
as they do, by the operation of the natural attributes of 
the Creator manifesting themselves in natural laws, and 
this is all that can be said of him in reference to his 
Maker. 

The more we contemplate the Divine Being, the more 
elearly do we see that his supernatural are his constitut- 
ing attributes ; the very Divinity of the Deity. If they 
are denied, the Creator is immediately confounded with 
che creature ; for his natural attributes, without his moral 
ones, become the soul of the world, its blind, though 
anerring principle of life. Or if they are misapprehend- 
ed, and the difference between the two classes is sup- 
posed to be only one of degree, and consequently that 
there is no essential distinction between nature and 
spirit, fatal errors will inevitably be the result. There 
will be no sharply and firmly drawn line between the 
natural and spiritual worlds, natural and spiritual laws, 
and natural and spiritual relationships. A mere natural- 
ism must run through theology, philosophy, science, lit- 
erature and art, depriving each and all of them of their 
noblest characteristics. 

The reality and importance of this distinction be- 
tween the natural and the supernatural, are to be seen 
in a less abstract and more interesting manner in the ac- 
tual life of men. Man is by creation a religious being ; 
and even in his religion we discover his proneness to 
deny or misapprehend the distinction in question. The 
religion of the natural man is strictly natural religion. It 



OF THEOLOGICAL STUDIES. 13 

refers solely to the natural attributes of God. There is 
no man who is not pleasurably affected by the manifes- 
tation of the Power and intelligent Design of the Deity, 
as seen in the natural world ; and all men who have not 
been taught experimentally, that there are higher attri- 
butes than these, and a higher religion than this, are con- 
tent with such religion. " As is the earthy, such are 
they that are earthy." They are strictly natural men, and 
seek that in God which corresponds to their character. 
The spirit, or the supernatural part of man, has not yet 
been renewed and vivified by a supernatural influence, 
and therefore there is no search after the spiritual attri- 
butes of God. The moment that the supernatural dawns 
upon such men, and the moral attributes of God appear 
in their awful and solemn relations to law, guilt, and 
atonement, they are troubled ; and unless mercifully 
prevented, descend into the low regions of nature, to 
escape" from a light and a purity which they cannot 
endure. 

It will be evident even from this brief discussion that 
the distinction between the natural and the supernatural 
is a valid and fundamental one ; that the natural world 
is essentially different from the supernatural, and that 
theology, as the science of the supernatural, possesses 
a scope, contents, and influence, as vast and solemn as 
the field of its inquiry. 

And think for a moment what this field is ! It is not 
the earth we tread upon, nor the heavens that are bent 
over it, all beautiful and glorious as they are. It is not 
that unseen world of living forces and active laws which 
lies under the visible universe, giving it existence and 
causing its manifold motions and changes. This is in- 
deed a deeply mysterious realm, and is a step nearer the 
Eternal than all that we see with the eye or touch with 

2 



14 THE METHOD, AND INFLUENCE, 

the hand is ; but it is not the proper home of theologica 
inquiry. 

Above the kingdoms of visible and invisible nature, 
there is a world which is the residence of a personal God, 
with supernatural attributes, and the seat of spiritual 
ideas, laws, and relations. It is, to use the language of 
Plato, " that super-celestial place which no one of the 
poets has hitherto worthily sung, or ever will," where right- 
eousness itself, true wisdom and knowledge, are to be 
seen in their very essence.* This is the proper field of 
theological inquiry, and as the mind ranges through it, it 
comes in sight of all that invests man's spirit with infi- 
nite responsibilities, and renders human existence one of 
awful interest. 

But what is the proper method of theological studies ? 

If what has been said relative to the two great king- 
doms into which the universe is divided, be true, it is 
plain that theological studies must commence in that 
supernatural world whose realities form its subject mat- 
ter, and that the true method is to descend from spirit 
to nature, in our investigations. The contrary process 
has been in vogue for the last century and a half, and 
the saying "from nature we ascend to nature's God," 
has come to be received as an axiom in theological 
science. 

If this assertion means anything, it means that by a 
careful observation of all that we can apprehend by the 
five senses, in space, we shall obtain a correct and full 
knowledge of God. The spirit of the assertion is this : 
Nature is first in the order of investigation, because 
its teachings are more surely correct, and its proofs are 

* Phaedrus. Opera viii. p. 30. See the whole of the beautiful descrip 
(ion of this virepovpdvios t6ttos : a passage vividly reminding of 1 Cor. ii. 



OF THEOLOGICAL STUDIES. 15 

more to be relied on, than those of the supernatural. 
Let us test it by rigidly applying it to the investigation 
of the being and character of God. What is there in 
nature which teaches, or proves, the existence of the 
Holiness of God ; or his Justice ; or his Mercy ? What 
is there in the world in which we live as beings of nature 
and sense, which necessarily compels us to assume the 
personality of God ? It is true that we are taught by 
all that exists in " the mighty world of eye and ear," that 
there are power and adaptive intelligence somewhere, but 
whether they are seated in a self-conscious and personal 
being, or are only the eternal procession of a blind and 
unconscious life, we cannot know anything that nature 
teaches. You see a movement in the natural world: 
say the growth of a plant or the blowing of a flower. 
What does that natural movement teach (considered 
simply by itself, and with no reference to a higher 
knowledge from another source,) and what have you a 
right to infer from it ? Simply this : that there is a mereh 
natural power adequate to its production ; but whether 
that power has any connection with the moral character 
of a spiritual person, you cannot know from anything 
you see in the natural phenomenon. Now extend this 
through infinite space, and will the closest examination 
of all the physical movements occurring in this vast do- 
main, taken by itself, lead up to a personal and holy 
God ? What is there in the law of gravity which has 
the least tendency to lead to the recognition of the law 
of holiness ? Is there any similarity between the two in 
kind ? What can the motions of the sun and stars, 
the unvarying return of the seasons, the birth, growth, 
and death, of animated existence, taken by themselves, 
teach regarding the supernatural attributes of God ? 
Take away from man the knowledge ol God which is 



16 THE METHOD, AND INFLUENCE, 

contained in the human spirit and in the written word 
and leave hirn to find his way up to a personal and spir- 
itual Deity by the light of nature alone, and he wil 
grope in eternal darkness, if for no other reason, because 
he cannot even get the idea of such a Being. 

For the truth is, that between the two kingdoms of 
nature and spirit a great gulf is fixed, and the passage 
from one to the other is not by degrees, but by a leap ; 
and this leap is not up, but down. There is one theory 
which assumes that the universe is but the development 
of one only substance ; and if this is a correct theory, 
then it is true that we can " ascend from nature up to 
nature's God." For all is continuous development, with 
no chasm intervening, and the height may consequently 
be reached from the bottom by a patient ascent. There 
is another and the true theory, which rejects this doc- 
trine of development, and substitutes in its place that of 
creation, whereby nature is not an emanation, but springs 
forth into existence for the first time, at the fiat of the 
Creator, who is now distinct from the work of his hands. 
Nature is now, in a certain sense, separate from God, 
and instead of being able to prove his moral existence, 
or to manifest his supernatural and constituting attri- 
butes, requires a previous knowledge of the Creator, 
from another source, in order to its own true apprehen- 
sion* 

Now the true method of obtaining a correct knowledge 
of an object, is to follow the method of its origin, and 
therefore true theological science follows the footsteps of 

* Whether the absolute is the ground or the cause is the question which 
has ever divided philosophers. That it is the ground but not the cause is 
the assertion of Naturalism ; that it is the cause and not the ground is the 
assertion of Theism. Jacobi. Von den Gott. Dingen. Werke. iii. 404, to- 
gether with the references. 



OF THEOLOGICAL STUDIES. 1? 

God. It starts with the assumption of his existence, 
and the knowledge of his character derived from a higher 
source than that of mere nature, that it may find in the 
works of his hands the illustration of his already known 
attributes, and the manifestation of his already be- 
lieved being. True theology descends from God to 
nature, and rectifies and interprets all that it finds in this 
complicated and perplexing domain, by what it knows 
of its Maker from other and higher sources. 

Take away from the human spirit that knowledge of 
the moral attributes of God which it has from its consti- 
tution, and from revelation, and compel it to deduce the 
character of the Supreme Being from what it sees in 
the natural world, and will it not inevitably become 
skeptical ? As the thoughtful heathen looked abroad 
over a world of pain and death, was he not forced reso- 
lutely to reject the natural inference to be drawn from this 
sight, and to cling with desperate faith to the dictum of a 
voice speaking from another quarter, saying : " See what 
thou mayest in nature apparently to the contrary, He is 
Just ; He is Holy ; He is Good." 

This false method of theological study proceeds from 
a belief common to man, resulting partly from his cor- 
ruption and partly from his present existence in a world 
of sense. It is the common belief of man that reality in 
the strictest sense of the term is to be predicated of ma- 
terial things, and in his ordinary thought and feeling, that 
which is spiritual is unreal. The solid earth which the 
" swain treads upon with his clouted shoon " has sub- 
stantial existence, and its material objects are real, but 
if we watch the common human feeling regarding such 
objects as the soul and God, we detect (not necessarily 
a known and determined infidelity, but) an inability to 
make them as real and substantial as the sun in th« 

2* 



18 THE METHOD, AND INFLUENCE, 

heavens, or the earth under foot. Lord Bacjn in de- 
scribing the idols of the tribe ; the false notions which 
are inherent in human nature ; says, that " man's sense 
is falsely asserted to be the standard of things." * It is, 
however, under the influence of the notion that it is, 
that man goes to the investigation of truth, and espe- 
cially of theological truth. Every thing is determined 
by a material standard, and established from the position 
of materialism. It is assumed that nature is more real 
than spirit ; that its instructions and evidences are more 
to be relied on than those of spirit ; and that from it, as 
from the only sure foothold for investigation, we are to 
make hurried and timid excursions into that dim undis- 
covered realm of the supernatural which is airy and un- 
real, and filled with airy and unreal objects. 

This is a low and mean idol, and if the inquirer after 
spiritual truth bows down to it he shall never enter the 
holy of holies. Spirit is more real than matter, for God 
is a spirit. Supernatural laws and relations are more 
real than those of nature, for they shall exist when na- 
ture, even to its elements, shall be melted with fervent 
heat. 

Why then should we, as did the pagan mythology, 
make earth and the earth-born Atlas support the old ev- 
erlasting heavens? They are self-supported and em- 
bosom and illumine all things else. Why should we 
attempt to rest spiritual science upon natuial science ; 
the eternal upon the temporal ; the absolute upon the 
empirical ; the certain upon the uncertain ? Is all that 
is invisible unreal, and must a thing become the object 
of the five senses, before we can be certain of its reality ? 
Not to go out of the natural world ; by what in this do 

* Novum Organum, Aph. 41. 



OF THEOLOGICAL STUDIES. 19 

main are we most vividly impressed with the conception 
of reality, and how is the notion of power awakened ? 
Not by anything we see with the eye or touch with the 
hand, but by the knowledge of that unseen force and law 
which causes the motions of the heavens, and makes the 
" crystal spheres ring out their silver chimes." Not by 
an examination of the phenomena of the mineral, vege- 
table, and animal kingdoms, but by the idea of that one 
vast invisible life manifesting itself in them. Even here, 
upon a thoughtful reflection, that which is unseen shows 
itself to be the true reality. And to go up higher into 
the sphere of human existence : where is the substantial 
reality of man's being ? In that path which, in the "an- 
guage of Job, " no fowl knoweth, and which the vulture's 
eye hath not seen." In that unseen world where human 
thought ranges, where human feelings swell into a vast- 
ness not to be contained by the great globe itself, and 
where human affections soar away into eternity. No I 
reality in the high sense of the term belongs to the invis- 
ible, and in the very highest sense, to the invisible things 
of the supernatural world. There is more of reality in 
the feeblest finite spirit than in all the material universe, 
for it will survive " the wreck of matter and the crash of 
worlds." The supernatural is a firmer foundation upon 
which to establish science than is the natural ; its data 
are more certain, and its testimony more sure than those 
of nature. None but an open ear, it is true, can hear the 
voices and the dicta that come from this highest world, 
but he who has once heard never again doubts regarding 
them. He cannot doubt, if he would. He has heard the 
tones, and they will continue to sound through his soul, 
with louder and louder reverberations, through its whole 
immortality. 

Perhaps it will be objected that, granting spiritual 



20 THE METHOD, AND INFLUENCE, 

things to be the true realities, yet the mind cannot see 
them except through a medium, and cannot be certain 
of their existence except by means of deductions from a 
palpable and tangible reality like that of the material 
world. But is it so ? Does the spirit need a medium 
through which to behold the idea and law of Right, for 
example ; and must it build up a series of conclusions 
based upon deductions drawn from the world of sense, 
before it can be certain that there is any such reality ? — 
Does not the human spirit see the idea of Right as 
directly and plainly as the material eye sees the sun at 
high noon ; and when it sees it, is it not as certain of its 
existence as we are of that of the sun ? If man does not 
see this spiritual entity, this supernatural idea, directly 
and without a medium, he will never see it, and if it 
does not of itself convey the evidence of its reality, it can 
be drawn from no other quarter. 

The same may be said of all spiritual entities what- 
ever ; of all the objects of the supernatural world. The 
rational spirit may and must behold them by direct intui- 
tion in their own pure white light. It has the organ for 
doing this. Not more certainly is the material eye 
designed for the vision of the sun, than the rational spirit 
is designed for the vision of God. The former is ex- 
pressly constructed to behold matter, and the latter is 
just as expressly constructed to behold spirit. Nor let it 
be supposed that the term " behold " is used literally in 
reference to the act of the material eye, and merely 
metaphorically in reference to the act of the spirit. The 
term is no more the exclusive property of one organ than 
of the other. Or if it is to belong to one exclusively let 
us rather appropriate it to that organ which sees eternal 
distinctions. If the term " sight " is ever metaphorical, 



OF THEOLOGICAL STUDIES. 21 

surely it is not so when applied to the vision of immuta- 
ble truths and everlasting realities. 

Man, both by nature and by the circumstances in 
which he is placed, finds it difficult thus to contemplate 
abstract ideal truth, and when it eludes his imperfect 
vision he charges the difficulty upon the truth and not 
upon himself. But for all this the ideal is real, and man 
is capable of this abstract vision. Upon his ability to 
free himself from the disturbing influences of sense, to be 
independent of the physical senses in the investigation 
of spiritual things, and to see them in their own light by 
their correlative organ, depends his true knowledge of the 
supernatural. It is on this ground that Plato asserts it 
to be the true mark of a philosophic mind to desire to 
die, because the mind is thereby withdrawn from the dis- 
traction of sense, and in the spiritual world beholds the 
Beautiful, the True, and the Good, in their essence. — . 
Hence with great force he represents those spirits which 
have not been entirely freed from the crass and sensuous 
nature of the body, as being afraid of the purely spiritual 
world and its supernatural objects, and as returning into 
the world of matter to wander as ghosts among tombs 
and graves, loving their old material dwelling more than 
the spirit-land.* 

The knowledge which comes from a direct vision of 
spiritual objects is sure, and needs no evidence of its 
truth from a lower domain. He who has once in spirit 
obtained a distinct sight of such realities as the Good, 
the Beautiful, the True, and their contraries, will never 
again be in doubt of their existence, or as to their natures. 
These are entities which once seen compel an everlast- 
ing belief. These are objects 

* Phaedon, Opera I. pp. 115, 1 16, 139. 



22 THE METHOD, AND INFLUENCE, 

that wake 

To perish never ; 
Which neither listlessness nor mad endeavor, 

Nor man nor boy, 
Nor all that is at enmity with joy, 
Can utterly abolish or destroy. 

The true method then of theological studies is to com- 
mence in and with the supernatural and to work outward 
and downward to the natural. The theologian must 
study his own spirit by the aid of the written word. He 
will ever find the two in perfect harmony and mutually 
confirming each other. The supernatural doctrines of 
theology must be seen in their own light ; must bring 
their own evidence with them, and theology must be a 
self-supported science. 

"Whatever may be said in opposition to this method 
by those who magnify natural theology to the injury of 
spiritual religion, it has always been the method of in- 
quiry employed, by the profoundest and most accurate 
theologians. Augustine lived at a period when natural 
science was but little cultivated and advanced, but even 
if he had possessed all the physical knowledge of the 
present day, that inward experience with its throes, 
agonies, and joys, so vividly portrayed in his " Confes- 
sions," would still have kept his eye turned inward. The 
power of Luther and Calvin lies in their realizing views 
of supernatural objects seen by their own light; and 
nothing but an absolutely abstract and direct beholding 
of supernatural realities could have produced the calm 
assurance and profound theology of that loftiest of human 
spirits, John Howe. 

But what has been the result of the contrary method ? 
Have not those who commenced with the study of 
natural theology, and who made this the foundation of 
their inquiries into the nature and mutual relations of 



OF THEOLOGICAL STUDIES. 23 

God and man, always remained on the spot where they 
first stationed themselves ? Did they, by logically fol- 
lowing their assumed method, ever rise above the sphere 
of merely natural religion into that of supernatural, and 
obtain just views either of the Infinite Spirit as personal 
and therefore tri-une ; or of the Finite Spirit as free, re- 
sponsible and guilty ? Did they ever acquire rational 
views of holy and just law ; of law as strictly supernatu- 
ral ; and so of its relations to guilt and expiation ? 

An undue study of natural science inevitably leads to 
wrong theological opinions. Unless it be pursued in the 
light which spirit casts upon nature, the student will 
misapprehend both nature and spirit. Who can doubt 
that if Priestley had devoted less time to the phenomena 
of the natural world, and far more to those of the super- 
natural ; less attention to physical laws as seen in the 
operations of acids and alkalies, and far more attention 
to the operation of a spiritual law as revealed in a guilty 
conscience ; he would have left a theology far more 
nearly conformed to the word of God and the structure 
of the human spirit. 

I have been thus particular in speaking of the super- 
natural element in theological studies, for the purpose of 
showing where their power lies, and whence their influ- 
ence comes. I turn now to consider the influence of 
these studies as they have been characterized, upon edu- 
cation and the educated class in the state. 

Genuine education is immediately concerned with the 
essence of the mind itself, and its power and work appear 
in the very substance of the understanding. It starts 
into exercise deeper powers than the memory, and it does 
more for the mind than merely to fill it. It enters rather 
into its constituent and controlling principles ; rouses 
and develops them, and thus establishes a basis for the 



24 THE METHOD, AND INFLUENCE, 

mind's perpetual motion and progress. Whether there 
be much or little acquired information is of small import- 
ance, comparatively, if the mind has that which is the 
secret of mental superiority, the power of originating 
knowledge upon a given subject for itself, and can fall 
back upon its own native energies for information. That 
process whereby a mind acquires the ability to fasten 
itself with absorbing intensity upon any legitimate 
object of human inquiry, and to originate profound 
thought and clear conceptions regarding it, is education. 

The truth of this assertion will be apparent if we bear 
in mind that knowledge, in the high sense of the term, 
is not the remembrance of facts, but the intuition of prin- 
ciples. Facts are that through which principles manifest 
themselves, and by which they are illustrated, but to take 
them for the essence of knowledge is to mistake the 
body for the soul. The true knowledge of nature, art, 
philosophy, and religion, is an insight into their constitu- 
ent principles, of which facts and phenomena are but the 
raiment ; the " white and glistering " raiment in which 
the essence is transfigured and through which it shines. 

Now, principles are entities that do not exist either in 
space or time. They cannot be apprehended by any 
organ of sense, and therefore they are not in space. — 
They cannot in a literal sense be said to be old or new. 
Principles are eternal and therefore they are not in time. 
Where then are they ? In the intellectual world : — a 
world that is not measured by space or limited by 
periods of time, but which has, nevertheless, as real an 
existence as this globe. In the world of mind, all those 
principles which constitute knowledge are to be sought 
for. They lie in the structure of mind, and therefore the 
development of the mind is but the discovery of princi- 
ples, and education is the origination of substantial 



OF THEOLOGICAL STUDIES. 25 

knowledge out of the very being who is to be educat- 
ed.* 

Thus, by this brief examination of the true nature of 
Knowledge, do we come round in a full circle to the spot 
whence we started, and see that he alone is in the pro- 
cess of true education who is continually looking within, 
and by the gradual evolution of his own mind is continu- 
ally unfolding those principles of knowledge that lie 
imbedded in it. Such an one may not have amassed 
great erudition, but he possesses a working intellect 
which, unencumbered by amassed materials, overflows 
all the more freely with original principles. We feel 
that such a mind is educated, for its products, are alive 
and communicate life. From a living impulse it origin- 
ates a knowledge, regarding any particular subject to 
which it directs itself, that commends itself to us as truth, 
by its congeniality and affinity with our own mind, and 
by its kindling influence upon it. 

Accustomed, from the domination of a mental philos- 
ophy which rejects the doctrine of innate ideas, to con- 
sider learning as something carried into the mind instead 
of something drawn out of it, it sounds strangely to 
speak of originating knowledge. But who are the really 
learned statesmen, philosophers, and divines ? Not those 
who merely commit to memory the results of past inquiry, 
but those in whom after deep reflection the principles of 
government, philosophy, and religion, rise into sight, with 
the freshness, inspiration, and splendor, of a new dis- 
covery. In asserting however that learning is the 
product of the mind itself, I mean that it is relatively so. 

* This is Plato's meaning when he asserts that learning is recollection :— 
the reminding of the human spirit of those great principles which are born 
with it, and which constitute its rationality. — Phaedon Opera I. p. 125, 
et seq. Cudworth's Im. Mor. Book iii, Chap. 3. 

3 



26 THE METHOD, AND INFLUENCE, 

It is not asserted that every truly learned mind discovers 
absolutely new principles, and consequently that the 
future is to bring to light a great amount of knowledge 
unknown to the past. Far from it. The sum of human 
knowledge, with the exception of that part relating to 
the domain of natural science, is undoubtedly complete, 
and we are not to expect the discovery of any new fun- 
damental principles in the sphere of the supernatural. — 
But it is asserted with confidence that these old principles 
must be discovered afresh for himself by every one who 
would be truly educated. " He who has been born," 
says an eloquent writer, " has been a first man, and has 
had the world lying around him as fresh and fair as it 
lay before the eyes of Adam himself." In like manner, 
he who has been created a rational spirit, has a world of 
rational principles encircling him, which is as new and 
undiscovered for him as it was for the first man. In the 
hemisphere of his own self-reflection and self-conscious- 
ness, the sun must rise for the first time, and the star3 
must send down their very freshest influences, their very 
first and purest gleam. 

For education, in the eminent sense of the term, is 
dynamic and not atomic. It does not lie in the mind 
in the form of congregated atoms, but of living, salient, 
energies. It is not therefore poured in from without, but 
springs up from within. The power of pure thought is 
education. Indeed the more we consider the nature of 
mental education, the more clearly do we see that it con- 
sists in the power of pure, practical reflection ; the ability 
so to absorb the mind that it shall sink down into itself, 
until it reaches those ultimate principles, bedded in its 
essence, by which facts and all acquired and remembered 
information are illuminated and vivified. It cannot be 
that he who remembers the most, is the most thoroughly 



OF THEOLOGICAL STUDIES. 27 

educated man, or that the age which is in possession of 
the greatest amount of books and recorded information; 
is the most learned. No ! learning is the product of a 
powerful mind, which, by self-reflection and absorption 
in pure, practical thought, goes down into those depths 
of the intellectual world, where, as in the world of matter, 
the gems and gold, the seeds, and germs, and roots, are 
to be found. It is related that Socrates could remain a 
whole day utterly lost in profound reflection.* This was 
the education in that age of no books, to which, through 
his scholar Plato, himself educated in the same way, is 
owing a system of philosophy, substantial with the very 
essence of learning; a system which for insight into 
ultimate principles is at the head of all human knowledge. 
Such being the nature of education, it is evident that 
theological studies are better fitted than any others, to 
educe a rational mind. For they bring it into imme- 
diate communication with those supernatural realities 
and truths which are appropriate to it, and which possess 
a strong power of development. There is in the human 
mind a vast amount of latent energy forming the basis 
for an endless progress, and this will lie latent and dor- 
mant unless the forces of the supernatural woild evolve 
it. The world of nature unfolds merely the superficies 
of man, leaving the hidden depths of his being unstirred, 
and only when the windows of heaven are opened are 
the fountains of this great deep broken up. For proof 
of this assertion, consider the influence which the theolo- 
gical doctrine of the soul's immortality exerts upon the 
spirit. When man realizes that he is immortal he is 
supernaturally roused. Depths are revealed in his being 
which he did not dream of, down into which he looks 
with solemn awe, and energies which had hitherto slum 

* Convivium. Platonis Opera vii. p. 278. 



28 THE METHOD, AND INFLUENCE, 

bered from his creation are now set into a play at which 
he stands aghast. Never do the tides of that shoreless 
ocean, the human soul, heave and swell as they do when 
it feels what the scripture calls " the power of an endless 
life." The same remark holds true of all properly theo- 
logical doctrines. An unequalled developing influence 
rains down from this great constellation. 

And the intellect as well as the heart of man feels the 
influence. Hence that period in a man's life which is 
marked by a realizing and practical apprehension of the 
doctrines of spiritual religion is also marked by a great 
increase of intellectual power. A manlier and more sub- 
stantial cultivation begins, because the being has become 
conscious of his high origin and the awfulness of his 
destiny, and a stronger play of intellectual power is 
evoked, because the stream of supernatural influence flows 
through the whole man, and both head and heart feel its 
vivification. The value of theological studies, in an 
intellectual point of view, does not consist so much in 
the amount of information as in the amount of energy 
imparted by them. The doctrines of theology, like the 
solar centres, are comparatively few in number, and while 
the demand they make upon the memory is small, the 
demand they make upon the power of reflection is 
infinite and unending. For this reason, theological 
studies are in the highest degree fitted to originate and 
carry on a true education. There is an invigorating vir- 
tue in them which strengthens while it unfolds the 
mental powers, and therefore the more absorbing the 
intensity with which the mind dwells upon them, the 
more it is endued with power. 

This truth is very plainly written in literary history. 
If we would see that period when the mind of a nation 
was most full of original power, we must contemplate 



OF THEOLOGICAL STUDIES. 2S 

its theological age. We ever find that the national intel- 
lect is most energetically educed in that period when the 
attention of educated men is directed with great earnest- 
ness to theological studies, while that period which is 
characterized by a false study, or a general neglect, of 
them, is one of very shallow education. Compare the 
education of the English mind during the sixteenth and 
seventeenth centuries, with its education in the eigh- 
teenth. The great difference between the two, is owing 
to the serious and profound reflection upon strictly theo- 
logical subjects that prevailed in the first period, and to 
the absence of such reflection in the second. The former 
was a theological age in the strict sense of the term ; a 
period when the educated class felt very powerfully the 
vigor proceeding from purely supernatural themes. The 
latter was a period when, through the influence of a sys- 
tem of philosophy which teaches that every thing must 
be learned through the five senses, a mere naturalism 
took the place of supernaturalism, and when, as a matter 
of course, the mind of the literary class was not the sub- 
ject of those developing and energizing influences which 
proceed only from supernatural truths. 

Again, that we may still more clearly see the vigorous 
character imparted to education by purely theological 
studies, let us consider two individuals who stand at the 
head of two different classes of literary men, and afford 
two different specimens of intellectual culture : — Lord 
Chancellor Bacon and Lord Chancellor Brougham. 

The education of Bacon is the result, in no small 
degree, of the influence of the truths of supernatural 
science. There was no naturalism in the age of Bacon ; 
there was none in his culture ; and there is none in his 
writings. He lived at a period when the English mind 
was stirred very deeply by religious doctrines, and whei? 

3* 



SO THE METHOD, AND INFLUENCE, 

the truths of the supernatural world were very absorbing 
topics of thought and discussion, not only for divines, 
but for statesmen. We of this enlightened nineteenth 
century, are in the habit of calling those centuries of 
reformation, dark, in comparison with our own; but with 
all the darkness on some subjects, it may be fearlessly 
asserted that since the first two centuries of the history 
of Christianity, there has never been a period when so 
large a portion of the race have been so deeply and anx- 
iously interested in the truths pertaining to another 
world, as in those two centuries of reformation; the 
sixteenth and seventeenth. With all the lack of modern 
improvements and civilization, there was everywhere a 
firm belief in the supernatural, and a sacred reverence for 
religion. Even the very keenness and acrimony of the 
theological disputations of that period prove that men 
believed, as they do not in an indifferent age* that reli- 
gious doctrines are matters of vital interest. 

Bacon lived in this age ; in its first years, and felt the 
first and freshest influences of the great awakening. His 
intellect felt them, and hence its masculine development 
and vigor. The products of his intellect felt them, and 
hence the solid substance, strong sinew, and warm blood, 
of which they are made. 

The education of Brougham has been obtained in a 
very different age from that of Bacon : an age when the 
faith and interest which the learned class once felt in the 
realities of another world, have transferred themselves 
to the realities of this. It has also been the result, in 
no small degree, of the belief and the study of the 
half-truths of natural theology. While then the recorded 
learning of Bacon bears the stamp of originality, is 
drenched and saturated with the choicest intellectual 
spirit and energy, makes an epoch in literary history, and 



OF THEOLOGICAL STUDIES. 31 

sends forth through all time an enlivening power, the 
recorded learning of Brougham is destitute of fresh life^ 
being the result of a diligent acquisition, and not of pro- 
found contemplation, gives off little invigorating influence, 
and cannot form a marked period, in the history of lite- 
rature. 

Thus far we have considered the developing and ener- 
gizing influence of theological studies ; but if we should 
stop here, we should be very far from discovering their 
full worth. There is a merely speculative development 
and energy of the mind which is heaven-wide from genu- 
ine education, and really prevents growth in true knowl- 
edge. 

There have ever been, and, so long as man shall 
continue to be a fallen spirit, there ever will be, two 
kinds of thought. The one speculative and hollow ; the 
other practical and substantial. The one wasting itself 
upon the factitious products of its own energy ; the other 
expending itself upon those great realities which are 
veritable, and have an existence independent of the finite 
mind. The natural tendency of the intellect, when not 
actuated by a rational and holy will, is to produce purely 
speculative thought, and in this direction do we see all 
intellect going which does not feel the influence of moral 
and spiritual truth. The speculative reason is a wonder- 
ful mechanism, and if kept within its proper domain, and 
applied to its correlative objects, is an important instru- 
ment in the attainment of truth and culture, but if 
suffered to pass over its appointed limits, and to occupy 
itself with the investigation of subjects to which it is not 
adapted, it brings in error rapidly and ad infinitum, pre- 
venting the true progress and repose of the spirit. There 
is no end to the manufactures of the speculative faculty, 
or to the productive energy of its life, when once the pro- 



32 THE METHOD, AND INFLUENCE, 

cess of speculation is begun. Nay, it is the express 
doctrine of Fichte (the most intensely and purely specu- 
lative intellect the world has yet seen) that the finite 
mind having the principle of its own movement within 
itself, by working in accordance with its own indwelling 
laws, is able to create, and actually does create the grea 
universe itself I The history of philosophy disclose 
much of such speculative thought, and hence the dissat- 
isfaction of philosophy with what it has hitherto done, 
and its striving after a substantial and genuine knowl- 
edge. Man as a moral being cannot be content with 
these hollow speculations, for spirit as well as nature 
abhors a vacuum. Thought must be filled up with sub- 
stantial verity, and knowledge must become practical, 
in order to the repose and true education of the mind. 

Yet notwithstanding the unsatisfying nature of specu- 
lative thinking, an intellectual life and enthusiasm are 
generated by it which invest it with a charming facina- 
tion for the mind that is led on by a merely speculative 
interest. What though the thinker is bewildered and 
lost in the mazes of speculation ; he is bewildered and 
lost in wonderful regions, the astounding nature of 
whose objects represses, for a time, the feelings of doubt 
and dissatisfaction. He is like the pilgrim lost in " the 
gorgeous East," who is delightedly lost amid the luxuri- 
ant entanglements and wild enchantments of the oriental 
jungle. In this exciting world of speculation, the ener- 
gies of the intellect are in full action, the thirst and 
curiosity for knowledge are keen, and under the impulse 
of these the thinker says with Jacobi ; " though I know 
the insufficiency of my philosophizing, still I can only 
philosophize right on." * 

* Jacobi, quoted by Tholuck. Vermischte Scbriften. ii. 427 ; and see a 
similar remark by Kant, Kritik der reinen Vernunft. p, 196. The philosc 



OF THEOLOGICAL STUDIES. 33 

It is possible to evoke intellectual energy so powerfully 
and habitually that the action shall become organic, and 
the intellect shall be instinctively busy with the produc- 
tion and reproduction of speculations ; and though the 
thinker gets no repose of soul by it, yet he is so much 
under the power of the intellectual appetite that he will 
not cease to gratify it. There is no more mournful chap- 
ter in the history of literary men than that which records 
their unending speculative struggles ; their effort's to find 
peace of mind and true education in the application of 
merely speculative energy to the solution of the great 
problems of moral existence. The process of speculation 
continually becomes more and more impeded, as at every 
advance still more mysterious problems come into sight, 
not soluble by this method; the over-tasked intellect at 
length gives out, and its gifted possessor falls into the 
abyss of unbelief like an archangel. 

It is not enough therefore that the latent power of the 
mind is developed merely ; it must be developed by some 
substantial objects, and it must be expended upon some 
veritable realities. In other words, the thought of man 
must be called forth by the ideas and principles of the 
supernatural world, and the mind of man must find 
repose and education in moral truth. 



pher, (says Chalybaus in the conclusion of his lecture upon Jacobi, Vorles 
ungen p. 77.) as well as the poet, can say of himself: — 

Ich halte diesen Drang vergebens auf, 

Per Tag und Nacht in meinem Busen wechselt, 

Wenn ich nicht sinnen oder dichten soil, 

So ist das Leben mir kein Leben mehr ! 

Verbiete du dem Seidenwunn, zu spinnen — 

Wenn er sich schon dem Tode naher spinnt, 

Das kostlichste Geweb' entwickelt er 

Aus seinem Innersten, und laszt nicht ab 

Bis er in seinen Sarg sich eingeschlossen. 



34 THE METHOD, AND INFLUENCE, 

The reader of Plato is struck with the earnestness with 
which this truly philosophic and educated mind insists 
upon knowing that which really is, as the end of philoso- 
phy. It matters not how consecutive and consistent 
with itself a system of thought may be, if it has no cor- 
respondent in the world of being, and does not find a 
confirmation in the world of absolute reality. The form 
may be distinct, and the proportions symmetrical, but 
the thing is spectral and unsubstantial, and though it be 
dignified with the name of philosophy, it is nevertheless 
a pure figment. Though not the product, of the fancy 
but of a far higher faculty, a merely speculative philo- 
sophical system is but a fiction ; a creation of the brain, 
to which there is, objectively, nothing correspondent. As 
an instance of such philosophizing, take the system of 
Spinoza. No one can deny that as a merely speculative 
unity, it is perfect, and perfectly satisfies the wants of 
that part of the human understanding which looks for 
nothing but a theoretical whole. All its parts are in 
most perfect harmony with each other, and with the 
whole. This system is conceived and executed in a 
most systematic spirit, and if man had no moral reason 
which seeks for something more than a merely specula- 
tive unity, it would be for him the true theory of the 
universe. But why is it not, and why cannot the hu- 
man mind be content with it ? Because a rational spirit 
cannot rest in it. There is in this system, great and 
architectural as it is, no repose or home for a moral 
being, and therefore it is not truth ; for absolute truth is 
infallibly known by the absolute and everlasting satisfac- 
tion it affords to the moral spirit. 

Another great aim of education, therefore, is the calm 
repose of the mind; its settlement in indisputable truth. 
This can proceed only from the study of the purely spir- 



OF THEOLOGICAL STUDIES. 33 

itual truths of theology, because such is their nature that 
there can be no real dispute regarding them, whereas 
merely speculative dogmas are susceptible of, and awak- 
en, an endless ratiocination. There has always been, for 
example, even among thoughtful men a keen dispute re- 
garding some points in the mode of the Divine existence, 
but none at all regarding the Divine character. The 
doctrine of the subsistence of creation in the creator has 
ever awakened honest disputations among sincere dis- 
putants, but the doctrine that God is holy has never 
been doubted by a conscientious thinker. This holds 
true of all speculative and practical doctrines. Within 
the sphere of theory and speculation there is room for 
endless wanderings, and no foundation upon which the 
spirit can stand still and firm. Within the sphere of 
practice and morality there need be no doubt nor error, 
and the sincere mind, by a direct vision of the truths of 
this practical domain of knowledge, may enter at once 
and forever into rest. 

The influence of purely theological studies, in produc- 
ing an education that ministers repose and harmony to 
the mind, is great and valuable. The intellectual energy 
is not awakened by abstractions, nor is it expended upon 
them, but upon those supernatural realities which are the 
appropriate objects of a rational contemplation, and which 
completely satisfy the wants of an immortal being. For 
that which imparts substantiality to thought, is religion, 
and all reflection which does not in the end refer to the 
moral and supernatural relations of man, is worthless* 
Though a fallen spirit, man still bears about with him the 
great idea of his origin and destiny. This allows him 
no real peace or satisfaction but in religious truth, and 
there are moments, consequently, in the life of the edu- 
cated man, when he feels with deep despondency the 



36 THE METHOD, AND INFLUENCE, 

need of the purer culture, and the more satisfactory re» 
flection, of better studies. If any, short of strictly theo- 
logical studies, can give repose of mind, they would have 
given it to the poet Goethe. Yet that mind, singu- 
larly symmetrical and singularly calm by nature, af- 
ter ranging for half a century through all regions save 
that strictly supernatural world of which we have spok- 
en, and after obtaining what of culture and intellectual 
satisfaction is to be found short of spiritual truths ; that 
mind, so richly and variously gifted, at the close of its 
existence on earth confessed that it had never experi- 
enced a moment of genuine repose. 

The German poet is not the only one whose educa- 
tion did not contribute to repose and peace of mind. 
The literary life has not hitherto been calm and satisfied. 
From all times, and from all classes of educated minds, 
there comes the mournful confession that " he that in- 
creaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow," and that all 
learning which does not go beyond the consciousness of 
the natural man and have for its object the Good, the 
True, and the Divine, cannot satisfy the demands of 
man's ideal state. From Philosophy, from Poetry, and 
from Art, is heard the acknowledgment that there is no 
repose for the rational spirit but in moral truth. The 
testimony that the whole creation groaneth and travail- 
eth in pain, together, is as loud and convincing from the 
domain of letters, as it is from the cursed and thistle- 
bearing ground. From the immortal longing and dis- 
satisfaction of Plato, down to the wild and passionate 
restlessness of Byron and Shelley, the evidence is deci- 
sive that a spiritual and religious element must enter 
into the education of man in order to inward harmony 
and rest. 

Time forbids p longer discussion of this part of the 



OF THEOLOGICAL STUDIES. 37 

subject. It may be said as a result of the whole, that a 
thorough study of theology as the science of the super- 
natural, results in a profundity and harmony of educa- 
tion which can be obtained in no other way, and if the 
culture which comes from poetry and fine literature gen- 
erally be also mingled with it, a truly beautiful as well 
as profound education will be the result of the alchemy. 

I turn now to consider the influence of theological 
studies upon Literature. And let me again remind you 
that I am speaking of purely theological studies, as they 
have been defined. There is an influence proceeding 
from so-called theological studies, which deprives litera- 
ture of its depth, power, beauty, and glory ; the quasi 
religious influence of naturalism, of which the poetry of 
Pope, the philosophy of Locke, the divinity of Priestley, 
and the morality of Paley, are the legitimate and neces- 
sary results. 

The fact strikes us in the outset, that the noblest and 
loftiest literature has always appeared in those periods 
oi a nation's existence, when its literary men were most 
under the influence of theological science. Whether we 
look at Pagan or Christian literature, we find this asser- 
tion verified. The mythology and theology of Greece 
exerted their greatest influence upon Homer, the three 
dramatists, and Plato ; and these are the great names in 
Grecian literature. If Cicero is ever vigorous and origi- 
nal he is in his ethical and theological writings. The 
beautiful flower of Italian literature is the " unfathom- 
able song" of the religious Dante. The beauty and 
strength of English literature are the fruit of those two 
pre-eminently theological centuries : — the sixteenth and 
seventeenth. The originality and life which for the last 
century has given German literature the superiority over 
other literatures of this period, must be referred mainly to 

4 



38 THE METHOD, AND INFLUENCE, 

the tendency of the German mind toward theological truth. 
And judging a priori, we should conclude that such would 
be the fact. We might safely expect that the human 
mind would produce its most perfect results, when most 
under the influences that come from its birth-place. We 
might know beforehand, that truth and beauty would 
flow most freely into the creations of man's mind, when 
he himself is in most intimate communication with that 
world where these qualities have their eternal fountain. 

1. The first and best fruit of the influence of the- 
ology upon literature is profundity. This characteristic 
of the best literature of a nation is immediately noticed 
by the scholar, so that its decrease or absence is, for him, 
the chief sign of deterioration. In that glorious age of a 
nation when the solemn spirit of religion informs every- 
thing ; when, compared with after ages, the nation seems 
to be very near the supernatural world in feeling and 
sentiment ; when prophet, poet, and priest, are syno- 
nymies ; then arises its most profound literature. 

By a profound literature, is meant one that addresses 
itself to the most profound faculties of the human soul. 
The so-called polite literature, is the lightest and most 
unessential product of the human mind. It is the work 
of the inferior part of the understanding, deriving little 
life or vigor from its deepest powers, and having no im- 
mediate connection with its highest cultivation. It 
occupies the attention of man in his youthful days, 
affording an ample field in which the fancy may rove 
and revel, and starting some of the superficial life of the 
intellect , but in the mature and meditative part of his 
existence- when the great questions relating to his origin 
and destiny are raised, he leaves these gay and pleasant 
studies for that more profound literature which comes 
home to deeper faculties and wants. 



OF THEOLOGICAL STUDIES. 39 

A survey of literature generally, at once shows that 
but a very small portion of it is worthy to be called pro- 
found. How very little of the vast amount which has 
been composed by the literary class, addresses itself to 
the primitive faculties of the human soul! The greater 
part merely stimulates curiosity, exercises the fancy, and 
perhaps loads the memory. Another portion externally 
polishes and adorns the mind. It is only a very small 
portion, which by speaking to the Reason and the ra- 
tional and creative Imagination, and rousing into full 
play of life those profound powers, ministers strength, 
true beauty, and true culture to the soul. 

Consider for a moment the character of the English 
literature of the present day. I do not now refer to the 
dregs and ofF-scourings which are doing so much to de- 
bauch the English mind, but to the bloom and flower. 
And I ask if it does anything more for the scholar than to 
externally adorn and embellish his education ? Has it 
the power to educate ? Does it have a strong tendency 
to develop a historical, a philosophical, a poetical, or ar- 
tistic capability if it lie in the student ? Must not a 
more profound literature be called upon to do this, and 
must not the scholar who would truly develop what is in 
him, go back to the study of Homer and Plato ; of 
Dante ; of Shakspeare, Bacon, and Milton ? If he con 
tents himself with the study of the best current litera- 
ture, will he do anything more than produce a refine- 
ment destitute of life ; a culture without vigor ; and will 
he himself in his best estate be anything more than an 
intellectual voluptuary, utterly impotent and without 
vivifying influence upon letters ? 

There is then a profound portion of literature speaking 
to the deeper part of man, from which he is to derive a 
profound literary cultivation. A brief examination will 



40 THE METHOD, AND INFLUENCE, 

show that its chief characteristics arise from its being 
impregnated by theology ; not necessarily by the formal 
doctrines of theology, but by its finer essence and spirit. 
Theology, it has been said, is the science of the supernat- 
ural and therefore of the strictly mysterious. The idea of 
God, which constitutes and animates the science, is a 
true mystery. But that which is truly mysterious is 
truly profound, and deepens everything coming under its 
influence. Indeed mystery, in the philosophical sense of 
the term, is the author of all great qualities. Sublim- 
ity, Profundity, Grandeur, Magnificence, Beauty, can- 
not exist without it. Like night, it induces a high and 
solemn mood, and is the parent and nurse of profound 
and noble thought. That literature which is pervaded 
by it, becomes deep-toned, and speaks with emphasis to 
the deeper powers of man. Even when there is but an 
imperfect permeation by this influence ; when mystery 
is not fully apprehended, and the mind is not completely 
under its power ; even when the Poet feels 

" What he can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal," 

there is a noble inspiration in his lines, which, with all 
its vagueness, deepens the feelings and elevates the con- 
ceptions. It is related of Fichte, that in very early child- 
hood he would stand motionless for hours, gazing into 
the distant ether.* As such he is a symbol of the soul 
which is but imperfectly possessed by that mystery which 
surrounds every rational being. Those vague yearn- 
ings and obscure stirrings of the boy's spirit, as with 
strained eye he strove to penetrate the dark depths 
of infinite space, typify the workings of that soul which 
in only an imperfect degree partakes of this " vision and 

* Fichte'sLeben.I. 7. 



OF THEOLOGICAL STUDIES. 41 

faculty divine." And as those motions in this youthful 
spirit awaken interest in the observer, betokening as 
they do no common mood and tendency, so even the 
vague and shadowy musings of the mind which is but 
feebly under the influence of mystery : — a Novalis, or a 
Shelley, — are not without their interest and elevation. 

But when a genius appears in the history of a nation's 
literature, who sees the great import and feels the full 
power of those true mysteries which are the subject mat- 
ter of theological science, then creations appear which 
exert an inspiring influence upon all after ages, and by 
their profundity and power betoken that they are com- 
posed of no volatile essence, and produced by no super- 
ficial mental energy. They are not to be comprehended 
or admired at a glance, it is true, and therefore are not 
the favorites of the falsely educated class, but ever 
remain the peculiar property and delight of that inner 
circle of literary men in whom culture reaches its height 
of excellence. 

It may appear strange to attribute the noblest charac- 
teristics of literature to the mysteries of theology, but a 
philosophical study of literature convincingly shows that 
from this dark unsightly root grows "the bright con- 
summate flower." It is the spirit of this solemn and 
dark domain, which, by connecting literature with the 
moral and mysterious world, and by giving it a direct 
or indirect reference to the deepest and most serious 
relations of the human spirit, renders it profound, and 
raises it infinitely above the mass of common light liter- 
ature. 

2. This same influence of theology imparts that earn- 
est and lofty purpose which resides in the best literature. 
The chief reason why the largest portion of the produc- 
tions of the literary class contributes nothing to true cul- 



42 THE METHOD, AND INFLUENCE, 

tivation, and is destitute of the highest excellence, is 
the fact that it is not animated by a purpose. The 
poet composes a poem with no specific and lofty inten- 
tion in his eye, but merely to give vent to a series of per- 
sonal states and feelings. He writes for his own relief 
and gratification, not realizing, as Milton did, that " po- 
etic abilities, wheresoever they be found, are the inspired 
gift of God, rarely bestowed ; and are of power beside the 
office of a pulpit, to imbreed and cherish in a great peo- 
ple the seeds of virtue and public civility," and should 
be used for this noble purpose. The literary man gen- 
erally, does not even dream that he is obligated to work 
with a good and elevated object in his eye, but is 
exempt from the universal law of creation, which obli- 
gates every finite spirit to live and labor for truth and 
God. 

But sin .always takes vengeance, and all literature 
which is purposeless, and does not breathe an earnest 
spirit, is destitute of the highest excellence. It will want 
the solemnity, the enthusiasm, the glow, the grandeur, 
and the depth, which proceeds only from a lofty and 
serious intention in the mind of the author. And this 
purpose can dwell only in the mind which is haunted by 
the higher ideas and truths of supernaturalism. It is in 
vain for the literary man to seek his inspiration in the 
earthly, or the intellectual, world. He must derive it 
from the heaven of heavens. 

Both in heathen and in Christian literature, we find 
the noblest productions to be but the embodiment of a 
purpose ; and the purpose is always intimately connect- 
ed with the moral world. The Iliad proposes to exhibit 
the battle of heaven and earth, of gods and men, united 
in defence of the rights of injured hospitality. This 
proposition oervades the poem, and greatly contributes 



OF THEOLOGICAL STUDIES. 43 

to invest it with the highest attributes of literature. The 
Grecian drama is serious and awful with the spirit of 
law and vengeance. Its high motive, is to teach all those 
solemn and fearful truths regarding justice and injustice 
which constitute the law written on the heart, and are 
the substance of the universally accusing and condemn- 
ing conscience of man. Pagan though the Greek drama 
be, yet when we consider the loftiness and fixedness of 
its intention to bring before the mind all that it can know 
of the supernatural short of revelation, we hesitate not to 
say that it is immeasurably ahead of much of so-called 
Christian literature, in its doctrine and influence, as 
well as in its literary characteristics. As the scholar con- 
templates the elevated moral character running through 
this portion of Grecian literature, and contrasts it with 
much of that which is called Christian in distinction from 
heathen, he is led to take up that indignant exclamation 
of Wordsworth uttered in another connection, 

I'd rather be 
A Pagan, suckled in a creed outworn. 

Of all literary men who have written since the 
promulgation of the Christian religion, Milton seems to 
have most strongly felt the influences of theology, and 
he more than all others was animated and strengthened 
by a high moral aim. In his literary works he distinctly 
and intentionally has in view the advancement of truth 
and the glory of God. These were " his matins duly, 
and his even-song." And to this noble purpose, as much 
as to his magnificent intellectual powers, are owing the 
profundity, loftiness, grandeur, truth, and beauty, which, 
in the literary heavens make his works like his soul, " a 
star that dwells apart." 

We live in an age when theology has become entirely 



44 THE METHOD, AND INFLUENCE, 

dissevered from literature, and when supernatural sci. 
ence forms no part of the studies of the cultivated 
class. There was a period when literary men devoted 
the best of their time to the high themes of religion, and 
when literature took a deep hue and tincture from theol- 
ogy. There was a period when such a man as Bacon 
wrote theological tracts and indited most solemn and 
earnest prayers ; when such a man as Raleigh composed 
devotional hymns ; when such a man as Spenser sung 
of the virtues and the vices ; when such a man as Shaks- 
peare expended the best of his poetic and dramatic 
power in exhibiting the working of the moral passions ; 
and when such a man as Milton made the fall of the hu- 
man soul the " great argument " of poetry. There was 
a time when literature was in a very great degree im- 
pregnated by theology. But that time has gone by, and 
the productions of later ages show, by their ephemeral 
and inefficient character, that they have not that truly 
spiritual element which makes literature ever fresh and 
invigorating. Whatever may be the embellishment, the 
charm, and the fascination, of modern literature, for the 
student in certain stages of his growth, it does not per- 
manently rouse and enliven like the old. It may sat- 
isfy the wants of the educated man for a time, but there 
does come a period in the history of every mind that is 
truly progressive in its character, when it will not satisfy, 
and the student must " provide a manlier diet." The 
mind when in the process of true unfolding cannot be 
ultimately cheated. Wants, which in the first stages of 
its development were dormant, while more shallow crav- 
ings were being met by a weak aliment, eventually make 
themselves felt, and send the subject of them after more 
substantial food. The favorite authors of the earlier pe- 
riods of education are thrown aside as the taste becomes 



OF THEOLOGICAL STUDIES. 45 

more severe, the sympathies more refined, and profounde\ 
feelings are awakened; the circle diminishes, until the 
scholar finally rests content with those few writers in 
every literature, who speak to the deeper spirit, because 
full of the vigor and power of the higher world. 

The student while in the enjoyment of it may not dis- 
tinctly know whence comes the charm and abiding spell 
of the older literature ; but let him transfer himself into 
periods of national existence when faith in the super- 
natural had become unbelief, and when literary men had 
lost the solemn and earnest spirit of their predecessors, 
and he will know that religion is the life of literature, as 
it is of all things else. He will discover that the absence 
of an enlarging and elevating influence in letters, is to 
be attributed to the absence of that theological element 
with which the human mind, notwithstanding the corrup- 
tion of the human spirit, has a quick and deep affinity. 

I have thus, gentlemen of the societies, spoken of the 
true method of Theological Studies, and of their great 
and noble influences upon education and literature. If 
I have spoken with more of a theological tone than is 
usually heard upon a literary festival like the present 
occasion, I might excuse myself by simply saying, in the 
language of Bacon, that every man is a debtor to his 
profession. But I confess to a most sincere and earnest 
desire of awakening in the minds of those who are soon 
to become a part of the educated class of the land, an 
interest and love for that noblest and most neglected of 
the sciences : — theology. This science has come to be 
the study of one profession alone, and of one that 
unhappily includes but a very small portion of the edu^ 
cated class. And yet in the depth and breadth of its 
relations, as well as in the importance of its matter, it is 
the science of the sciences, God is the God of every 



46 THE METHOD, AND INFLUENCE, 

man, and the science which treats of Him and his ways 
deeply concerns every man, and especially every one who 
in any degree is raised above the common level, by the 
opportunity and effort to cultivate himself. It is a great 
error to suppose that theological studies should be the 
exclusive pursuit of the clergy, and that the remainder 
of the literary class in the state should feel none of the 
enlargement and elevation of soul arising from them. — 
When the idea of a perfect commonwealth shall be fully 
realized — if it ever shall be on earth — theology will be 
the light and life of all the culture and knowledge con- 
tained in it. Its invigorating and purifying energy will 
be diffused through the whole class of literary men, and 
through them will be felt to the uttermost extremities of 
the body politic. All other sciences will be illuminated 
and vivified by it, and will then reach that point of per- 
fection which has ever been in the eye of their most 
genial and profound votaries. 

For a knowledge of the aims of the most gifted and 
enthusiastic students of science, discloses the need of the 
influence of theology, in order to the perfection of science, 
as well as of letters. That which makes Burke one of 
the few great names in political science, is the solemn 
and awful view he had of law as strictly supernatural in 
its essence ; of law, in his own language, as " prior to all 
our devices, and prior to all our contrivances, paramount 
to all our ideas, and all our sensations, antecedent to our 
very existence, by which we are knit and connected in 
the eternal frame of the universe, out of which we cannot 
stir." * It was his high aim therefore to render political 
science religious in its character, and to found govern- 
ment upon a sacred and reverential sentiment towards 
Law, in the breasts of the governed. Politics in his eye, 

* Speech in the impeachment of Hastings. Works, iii, p. 327. 



OF THEOLOGICAL STUDIES. 47 

and government in his view, are essentially -different 
from the same things, as viewed by that large class of 
political men who do not appear to dream, even, that 
there is a supernatural world, or that there are supernat- 
ural sanctions and supports to government. But the 
speculative views regarding politics advanced by Burke 
will never be practically realized among the nations, until 
the influence of the high themes of spiritual theology is 
felt among them, and political science will not be a 
perfect scheme, until constructed in the light and by the 
aid of theological doctrine. The sanction, the sacredness, 
the authority, and the binding power, of law, as the 
foundation of government and political science, for which 
Burke plead so eloquently, come from the supernatural 
world, and are not apprehensible except in the light of 
that science which treats of that world. The fine visions 
and lofty aspirations of Burke, relative to government 
and political science, depend therefore upon the practical 
and theoretical influence of theology for their full realiza- 
tion. 

Let me briefly refer to another instance, in which we 
see that the high aims of a most profound and genial 
student will be attained only under the influence of the 
science of the supernatural. It has been the high endeavor 
of Schelling to spiritualize natural science ; to strip 
nature of its hard forms, and by piercing beneath the 
material, to behold it as immaterial ideas, laws, and 
forces.* This is not only a beautiful, but it is the true, 
idea of nature and natural science. Schelling however 
has failed to realize it in a perfect manner. However 
great may be his merit in infusing life into this domain 



* System des transcend. Idealismus,, p. 5 For a full exhibition of this 
method of natural science, see Carus's Physiologie, Erster Theil. 



48 THE METHOD, AND INFLUENCE, 

of knowledge, and in overthrowing the mechanical view 
of nature, he has not constructed his system so as to 
maintain a pure theism, and therefore when viewed 
in connection with the true system of the universe, with 
which every individual science must harmonize, its falsity, 
in the great whole of knowledge, is apparent. And the 
imperfection of this system is owing, first, to the absence 
of a sharp and firm line of distinction between the natu- 
ral and the supernatural, and secondly, to the want of 
that protection from pantheism, which a truly profound 
philosopher can find only in the purely supernatural doc- 
trines of theology. 

It is not true then that the theologian by profession ib 
alone concerned with theology. He who would obtain 
correct views in political or natural science, as well as 
he who would be a mind of power and depth in the 
sphere of literature ; in short, the student generally ; has 
a vital interest in the truths of supernatural science.— 
And it is this conviction, gentlemen, which I would fix 
and deepen in your minds. Your attention might have 
been directed to some more popular theme ; to some one 
of the aspects of polite literature, present or hoped for : 
but I preferred to direct your thoughts to a range of 
neglected but noble studies, confident that if any per- 
manent interest should be thereby awakened in your 
minds towards them, a substantial benefit would be con- 
ferred upon you. I would then, not with the feigned 
earnestness which too generally characterizes appeals 
upon such an occasion as the present, but with all the 
solemn earnestness of the Sabbath, urge you to the seri- 
ous pursuit of theological studies. It matters not, which 
may be the particular field in which you are to labor as 
educated men ; the influence of these studies is elevating 



OF THEOLOGICAL STUDIES. 49 

and enlarging in any field, and upon all the public pro- 
fessions. 

Jf the Law is to be the special object of your future 
study, your idea of human law will be purified and 
corrected by your study of the divine law, and the general 
spirit and bearing of your practice will be elevated by 
those high studies which, more than any others, generate 
high principles of action. 

Should you enter the arena of Political life, the influ- 
ence of these studies will be most salutary. In this 
sphere, a man at the present day needs a double portion 
of pure and lofty principle, and should anxiously place 
himself under the most select influences. If the serious 
political spirit of Washington, and Jay, and Madison, is 
ever again to actuate our politics, it will be only through 
the return of that reverence for law, as flowing from a 
higher reality than the naturally corrupt will of man, and 
that faith in government as having its ground and sanc- 
tions in the supernatural and religious world, which 
characterized them. If politics is ever to cease to be a 
game, and is ever again to be considered as one of the 
solemn interests pertaining to human existence, it will be 
only when our young men enter this field under the 
influence of studies, and a discipline, that purge away 
low and sordid views, and induce a serious integrity and 
a self-sacrificing patriotism. If then you would sustain 
a relation to the government of your country, honorable 
to yourselves, and beneficial to it, imbue your minds and 
baptize your views and opinions with the theological 
spirit. Then you will be a statesman in the old and best 
sense of the word ; not a mere office holder or seeker of 
office; but one in whom the great idea of the state 
resides and lives, and who by its indwelling power is fui? 

5 



50 THE METHOD, AND INFLUENCE, 

of the patriotic sentiment, and inspired by the nobh 
spirit of allegiance to government and country.* 

Finally, if you are to be one of the ministers and in- 
terpreters of Nature, or one who devotes himself to the 
cultivation of Fine Letters, the influence of these stud- 
ies will be great and valuable. In the light of the super- 
natural, you will best interpret nature, and under the 
power of theology, you will be best enabled to contribute 
a profound and lofty addition to literature. 

No one who watches the signs of the times, and 
especially the rapid and dangerous change now going 
on in the public sentiment of our country relative to the 
foundations of religion, government, and society, can 
help feeling that under Providence, very much is depend- 
ing upon the principles and spirit which the educated 
young men take out with them into active life. Bacon, 
long ago, said that the principles of the young men of a 
nation decided its destiny, and the course of human 
events since his day has verified his assertion. It is cer- 
tainly true in its fullest sense of this nation and its 
young men. Unless an upbuilding and establishing in- 
fluence proceeds from the educated class, the disorganiz- 
ing elements which are already in a furious fermentation 
in society will eventually dissolve all that is solid and 
fixed in it ; and unless this class feel some stronger and 
purer influence than that of this world ; unless it feels 
the power of the objects and principles of the other 
world ; it will hasten rather than counteract the coming 
dissolution. Merely human culture, and merely natural 

* Das Wort Staatsmann ist hier in dem Sinn des antiken iroAtTiicbs 
genommen, und es soil dabei weniger daran gedacht werden, dasz eincr 
etwas bestimmtes im Staat zu verrichten hat, was volligzufallig ist, als dasz 
einer vorzugsweise in der Idee des Staats lebt. Schleiermacher. Reden. 
p. 28. 



OF THEOLOGICAL STUDIES. 51 

science, cannot educe that moral weight and force in the 
cultivated class, without which the state cannot long 
hold together. These must come from the general influ- 
ence of theological science upon the minds of the edu- 
cated ; from the infusion into culture of that reverence 
for God, and that purifying insight into supernatural 
truth, without which culture becomes skeptical and shal- 
low, powerless for good and all-powerful for evil. 

In closing, permit me to remind you that you need the 
influence of these studies personally, without reference 
to your relations to the world at large. You need them 
in order to attain the true end of your own existence. How- 
ever sedulously you may cultivate yourselves in other 
respects, you will not be cultivated for eternity, without 
the study and vital knowledge of theology. It has been 
foreign to the main drift of my discourse, and to the 
occasion, to speak of that deepest, that saving, knowl- 
edge of supernatural religion which proceeds from being 
taught by the Eternal Spirit. I have spoken only of the 
general and common influence of the doctrines of purely 
supernatural, in distinction fiom those of merely natural, 
theology. They have a great power in themselves, apart 
from their special vivification by the Divine Spirit. 
This is worthy of being sought after, and to this I have 
urged you. But if you would feel the full power of the- 
ology ; if you would secure the freest, fairest, and holiest 
development of your spirits ; if you would accomplish the 
very utmost of which you are capable, for your country 
and for man, in the sphere in which you shall be called 
to labor ; if you would secure a strength which you will 
soon find you need in the struggle into which you are 
about to enter : — the struggle with the real world, and 
the still fiercer struggle with your real selves ; then 
study theology experimentally. The discipline to which 



52 METHOD, AND INFLUENCE, OF THEOLOGICAL STUDIES. 

you have been subjected in the course of your training 
in this University, so far as human influence can do so, 
leads and urges you in this direction ; for it is the plan 
and work of one of those elect and superior spirits (few 
and rare in our earthly race) who have an instinctive 
and irresistible tendency to the Supernatural.* This has 
been the tendency of your training, and if you will only 
surrender yourselves to this tendency, heightened and 
made effectual by special divine influences, as it will be 
for every scholar who seeks them with a solemn spirit, 
you will fully realize the idea of a perfect education. 

* The allusion is to the late President Marsh. 



THE NATURE, AND INFLUENCE, OF THE 
HISTORIC SPIRIT. 



AN INAUGURAL DISCOURSE DELIVERED IN ANDOVER THEOLOGICAL 
SEMINARY, FEB. 15, 1854. 



The purpose of an Inaugural Discourse is, to give a 
correct and weighty impression of the importance of 
some particular department of knowledge. Provided the 
term be employed in the technical sense of Aristotle and 
Quinctilian, the Inaugural is a demonstrative oration, 
the aim of which is to justify the existence of a specific 
professorship, and to magnify the specific discipline 
which it imparts. It must, consequently, be the general 
object of the present discourse to praise the department, 
and recommend the study, of History. 

As we enter upon the field which opens out before us, 
we are bewildered by its immense expanse. The whole 
hemisphere overwhelms the eye. The riches of the sub- 
ject embarrass the discussion. For this science is the 
most comprehensive of all departments of human knowl- 
edge. In its unrestricted and broad signification, it in- 
cludes all other branches of human inquiry. Everything 
in existence has a history, though it may not have a phi- 
losophy, or a poetry ; and. therefore, history covers and 

(53) 



54 THE NATURE, AND INFLUENCE, OF 

pervades and enfolds all things as the atmosphere does 
the globe. Its subject-matter is all that man has thought, 
felt, and done, and the line of Schiller is true even if 
taken in its literal sense : the final judgment is the his- 
tory of the world.* 

If it were desirable to bring the whole encyclopaedia of 
human knowledge under a single term, certainly history 
would be chosen as the most comprehensive and elastic 
of all. And if we consider the mental qualifications re- 
quired for its production, the department whose nature 
and claims we are considering, still upholds its superi- 
ority, in regard to universality and comprehensiveness. 
The historic talent is inclusive of all other talents. The 
depth of the philosopher, the truthfulness and solemnity 
of the theologian, the dramatic and imaginative power 
of the poet, are all necessary to the perfect historian, and 
would be found in him, at their height of excellence, did 
such a being exist. For it has been truly said, that we 
shall sooner see a perfect philosophy, or a perfect poem, 
than a perfect history. 

We shall, therefore, best succeed in imparting unity 
to the discourse of an hour, and in making a single and, 
therefore, stronger impression, by restraining that career 
which the mind is tempted to make over the whole of 
this ocean-like arena, and confining our attention to a 
single theme. 

It will be our purpose, then, to speak, 

First, Of that peculiar spirit imparted to the mind of 
an educated man, by historical studies, which may be 
denominated the historic spirit ; and 

Secondly, Of its influence upon the theologian. 

The historic spirit may be defined to be : the spirit of 

* Resignation. 



THE HISTORIC SPIRIT. 55 

the race as distinguished from that of the individual, and 
of all time as distinguished from that of one age. 

We here assume that the race is as much a reality as 
the individual ; for this is not the time nor place, even if 
the ability were possessed, to reopen and reargue that 
great question which once divided the philosophic world 
into two grand divisions. We assume the reality of 
both ideas. We postulate the real and distinct, though 
undivided, being of the common humanity and the par- 
ticular individuality. We are unable, with the Nominal- 
ist, to regard the former as the mere generalization of 
the latter. The race is more than an aggregate of sepa- 
rate individualities. History is more than a collection 
of single biographies, as the national debt is more than 
the sum of individual liabilities. Side by side, in one and 
the same subject ; in every particular human person ; ex- 
ist the common humanity with its universal instincts and 
tendencies, and the individuality with its particular in- 
terests and feelings. The two often come into conflict 
with an earnestness, and at times in the epic of history 
with a terrible grandeur, that indicates that neither of 
them is an abstraction ; that both are solid with the sub- 
stance of an actual being, and throb with the pulses of 
an intense vitality. 

The difference between history and biography involves 
the distinct entity and reality of both the race and the 
individual. Biography is the account of the peculiari- 
ties of the single person disconnected from the species, 
and is properly concerned only with that which is char- 
acteristic of him as an isolated individual. But that 
which is national and philanthropic in his nature ; that 
which is social and political in his conduct and career ; 
all that links him with his species and constitutes a part 
of the development of man on the globe ; all this is his- 



56 THE NATURE, AND INFLUENCE, OF 

torical and not biographic. Speaking generally in or- 
der to speak briefly, all that activity which springs up 
out of the pure individualism of the person, makes up 
the charm and entertainment of biography, and all that 
activity which originates in the humanity of the person 
furnishes the matter and the grandeur of history. 

History, then, is the story of the race. It is the exhi- 
bition of the common generic nature of man as this is 
manifested in that great series of individuals which is 
crowding on, one after another, like the waves of the sea, 
through the ages and generations of time. The historic 
muse omits and rejects everything in this march and 
movement of human beings that is peculiar to them as 
selfish units ; everything that has interest for the man, 
but none for mankind ; and inscribes upon her tablet 
only that which springs out of the common humanity, 
and hence has interest for all men and all time. 

History, therefore, is continuous in its nature. It is so 
because its subject-matter is a continuity. This common 
human nature is in the process of continuous evolution, 
and the wounded snake drags its slow length along down 
the ages and generations. No single individual; no single 
age or generation ; no single nationality, however rich and 
capacious ; shows the whole of man, and so puts a stop 
to human development. The time will, indeed, come, 
and the generation and the single man, will one day be, 
in whom the entire exhibition will close. The number 
of individuals in the human race is predetermined and 
fixed by Him who sees the end from the beginning. But 
until the end of the series comes, the development must 
go on continuously, and the history of it, must be con- 
tinuous also. It must be linked with all that has gone 
before ; it must be linked with all that is yet to come. 
As it requires the whole series of individuals, in Older 



THE HISTORIC SPIRIT. 57 

to a complete manifestation of the species, so it requires 
the whole series of ages and periods, in order to an 
entire account of it. 

But while history is thus continuous in its nature, par- 
adoxical as it may appear, it is at the same time complete 
in its spirit. Observe that we are speaking of the ab- 
stract and ideal character of the science ; of that quality 
by which it differs from other branches of knowledge. 
"We are not speaking of any one particular narrative that 
has actually been composed, or of all put together. History 
as actually written is not the account of a completed pro- 
cess, because, as we have just said, the development is 
still going on. Still, the tendency of the department is 
to a conclusion. History looks to a winding up. We 
may say of it, as Bacon says of unfulfilled prophecies : 
" though not fulfilled punctually and at once, it hath a 
springing and germinant accomplishment through many 
ages." It contains and defines general tendencies ; it in- 
timates, at every point of the line, a final consummation. 
The historical processes that have actually taken place, 
all point at, and join on upon, the future processes that 
are to be homogeneous with them. That very con- 
tinuity in the nature of this science, of which we have 
spoken, results in this completeness, or tendency to a 
conclusion, in its spirit. Like a growing plant, we know 
what it will come to, though the growth is not ended. 
For it is characteristic of an evolution, provided it is a 
genuine one, that seize it when you will, and observe it 
at any point you please, you virtually seize the whole ; 
you observe it all. Each particular section of a develop- 
ment exhibits the qualities of the whole process, and the 
organic part contemplated by itself throbs with the gen- 
eral life. Hence it is that each particular history ; of a 
nation, or an age, or a form of government, or a school 



58 THE NATURE, AND INFLUENCE, OF 

of philosophy, or a Christian doctrine ; when conceived 
in the spirit of history, wears a finished aspect, and sounds 
a full and fundamental tone. And hence the proverb : 
man is the same in all ages, and history is the repetition 
of the same lessons. 

So universal and virtually complete in its spirit is this 
science, that a distinguished modern philosopher has as- 
serted that it may become a branch of a priori knowl- 
edge, and that it actually does become such in propor- 
tion as it becomes philosophic. Being the account, not 
of a dislocation, but of' a development, and this of one 
race ; being the exhibition of the unfolding of one single 
idea of the Divine mind ; the history of the world, he 
contends, might be written beforehand by any mind that 
is master of the idea lying at the bottom of it. The 
whole course and career of the world, is predetermined 
by its plan, and supposing this to be known, the histo- 
rian is more than " the prophet looking backward," as 
Schlegel calls him ; he is the literal prophet. He does 
not merely inferentially foretell, by looking back into the 
past, but he sees the whole past and future simultaneously 
present in the Divine idea of the world, of which by the 
hypothesis he is perfectly possessed. 

This philosopher believed in the possibility of such an 
absolutely perfect and a priori history, because he taught 
that the mind of man and the mind of God are one 
universal mind, and that the entire knowledge of the one 
may consequently be possessed by the other. While, 
however, the philosopher erred fatally in supposing that 
any being but God the Creator, can be thus perfectly 
possessed of the organic idea of the world, or that man 
can come into an approximate possession of it except as 
it is revealed to him by the Supreme mind, in providence 
and revelation, we must yet admit that the world is con- 



THE HISTORIC SPIRIT. 59 

structed according to such an idea or plan, and that foi 
this reason, coherence, completeness, and universality, 
are the distinguishing characteristics of its development. 
While, therefore, we deny that history as actually 
written, or as it shall be, comes up to this absolute and 
metaphysical perfection, it would be folly* to deny that it 
has made any approximation towards it, or that it will 
make still more. So far as the account has been com- 
posed under the guiding light of this divine idea, which 
is manifesting itself in the affairs of men ; so far, in other 
words, as it has been written in the light of providence 
and revelation ; it has been composed with truth, and 
depth, and power. Historians have been successful in 
gathering the lessons and solving the problems of their 
science in proportion as they have recognized a provi- 
dential plan in the career of the world, and have had 
some clear apprehension of it. The most successful par- 
ticular narratives seem to be parts of a greater whole. — 
They have an easy reference to general history ; evidently 
belong to it ; evidently were written in its comprehensive 
spirit and by its broad lights. So much does this science 
abhor a scattering, isolating, and fragmentary, method of 
treating the subject-matter belonging to it, that those 
histories which have been composed without any historic 
feeling; with no reference to the Divine plan and no 
connection with the universe ; are the most diy and life- 
less productions -in literature. Disconnection, and the 
absence of a unifying principle, are more marked, and 
more painfully felt, in historical composition, than in any 
other species of literature. Even when the account is 
that of a brief period, or mere point, as it were, in univer- 
sal space, the mind demands that it be rounded and 
finished in itself; that it exhibit, in little, that same com* 



60 THE NATURE, AND INFLUENCE, OF 

plete and coherent process, which is going on more 
grandly, on the wider arena of the world at large. 

History, then, is the exhibition of the species. Its 
lessons may be relied upon as the conclusions to which 
the human race have come. In these historic lessons, the 
narrowness of individual and local opinions has been 
exchanged for the breadth and compass of public and 
common sentiments. The errors to which the single 
mind ; the isolated unit, as distinguished from the organic 
unity ; is exposed, are corrected by the sceptical and criti- 
cal processes of the general mind. 

What, for illustration, is its teaching in regard to the 
presence and relative proportions in a political constitu- 
tion of the two opposite elements, permanence and pro- 
gression? Will not the judgment, in regard to this 
vexed question, that is formed on historic grounds, be, to 
say the least, safer and truer, than that formed upon the 
scanty experience of an individual man ? Will not the 
decision of one who has made up his mind after a 
thoughtful study of the ancient tyrannies and republics 
of Greece and Rome, of the republican states of Italy in 
the middle ages, of the politics of Europe since the for- 
mation of its modern state-system, be nearer the real 
truth than that of a pledged and zealous partisan, on either 
side of the question ; than that of the ancient Cleon or 
Coriolanus ; than that of the modern Rousseau or Filmer ? 
And why will it be nearer the truth ? Not merely 
because these men were earnest and zealous. Ardor 
and zeal are well in their place. But because these 
minds were individual and local ; because they were not 
historic and general in views and opinions. 

Take another illustration from the department of phi- 
losophy. A great variety of theories have been projected 
respecting the nature and operations of the human mind 



THE HISTORIC SPIRIT. 61 

so that it becomes difficult for the bewildered inquirer to 
know which he shall adopt. But will he run the hazard 
of fundamental error, if he assumes that that theory is 
the truth, so far as truth has been reached in this domain, 
which he finds substantially present in the philosophic 
mind in all ages ? if he concludes that the historic ph ; 
losophy is the true philosophy ? And will it be safe for 
the individual to set up in this department, or in the still 
higher one of religion, doctrines which have either never 
entered the human mind before, or, if they have, have 
been only transient residents ? 

The fact is, no one individual mind is capable of 
accomplishing, alone and by itself, what the race is des- 
tined to accomplish only in the slow revolution of its 
cycle of existence. It is not by the thought of any one 
individual, though he were as profound as Plato and as 
intuitive as Shakspeare, that truth is to obtain an exhaus- 
tive manifestation. The whole race is to try its power, 
and, in the end, or rather at every point in the endless 
career, is to acknowledge that the absolute is not yet 
fully known ; that the knowledge of man is still at an 
infinite distance from that of God. Much has been said, 
and still is, of the spirit of the age ; and extravagant 
expectations have been formed in regard to its insight 
into truth and its power of applying it for the progress 
of the species. But a single age is merely an individual 
of larger growth. There is always something particular, 
something local, something temporary, in every age, and 
we must not look here for the generic and universal any 
more than in the notions of the individual man. No age 
is historic, in and by itself. Like the individual, it only 
contributes its portion of investigation and opinion, to 
the sum total of material which is to undergo the test, 
not of an age, but of the ages. 



62 THE NATURE, AND INFLUENCE, OF 

Considerations like these go to show, that there is in 
that which is properly historic, nothing partial, nothing 
defective, nothing one-sided. It is the individual which 
has these characteristics ; and only in proportion as the 
individual man becomes historic in his views, opinions 
and impressions ; only as his culture takes on this large 
and catholic spirit, does he become truly educated. It is 
the sentiment of mankind at large, it is the opinion of the 
race, which is to be accepted as truth. When, therefore, 
the mind of the student, in the course of its education, is 
subjected to the full and legitimate influence of historical 
studies, it is subjected to a rectifying influence. The 
individual eye is purged, so that it sees through a crys- 
talline medium. That darkening, distorting matter, 
composing oftentimes the idiosyncracy rather than the 
individuality of the intellect, is drained off. 

Having thus briefly discussed the nature of the his- 
toric spirit by a reference to the abstract nature of the 
science itself, let us now seek to obtain a more concrete 
and lively knowledge of it, by looking at some of its 
actual influences upon the student. Let us specify some 
of the characteristics of the historical mind. 

I. In the first place, the historical mind is both reverent 
and vigilant. 

The study of all the past raises the intellect to a loftier 
eminence than, that occupied by the student of the present; 
the man of the time. The vision of the latter is limited 
by his own narrow horizon, while that of the former goes 
round the globe. As a consequence, the historic mind is 
impressed with the vastness of truth. It knows that it 
is too vast to be all known by a single mind, or a single 
age; too immense to be taken in at a single glance, 
much less to be stated in a single proposition. Histori- 
«• studies have, moreover, made it aware of the fact that 



THE HISTORIC SPIRIT. 63 

truth is modified by passing through a variety of minds ; 
that each form taken by itself is imperfect, and that, in 
some instances at least, all forms put together do not 
constitute a perfect manifestation of the " daughter of 
time." The posture and bearing of such a mind, there- 
fore, towards all truth, be it human or divine, is at once 
reverent and vigilant. It is seriously impressed by the 
immensity of the field of knowledge, and at the same 
time is adventurous and enterprising in ranging over it. 
For it was when the human imagination was most 
impressed by the vastness of the globe, that the spirit of 
enterprise and adventure was most rife and successful. 
Before the minds of Columbus and De Gam a, before the 
imagination of the Northmen and the early English 
navigators, space stretched away westward and south- 
ward like the spaces of astronomy, and was invested 
with the awfulness and grandeur of the spaces of the 
Miltonic Pandaemonium. Yet this sense of space, this 
mysterious consciousness of a vaster world, was the very 
stimulation of the navigator; the direct cause of all 
modern geographical discovery. The merely individual 
mind, on the contrary, seeing but one form of truth, or, 
at most, but one form at a time, is apt to take this 
meagre exhibition for the full reality, and to suppose that 
it has reached the summit of knowledge. It is self-satis- 
fied and therefore irreverent. It is disposed to rest in 
present acquisitions and therefore is neither vigilant nor 
enterprising. 

II. And this naturally suggests the second characteris- 
tic of the historical mind : its productiveness and origi- 
nality. 

Such a mind is open to truth. The first condition to 
the advancement of learning is fulfilled by it ; for it is 
the fine remark of Bacon, that the kingdom of science. 



64: 



like the kingdom of heaven, is open only to the child; 
only to the reverent, recipient, and docile, understanding. 
Perhaps nothing contributes more to hinder the progress 
of truth than self-satisfied ignorance of what the human 
mind has already achieved. The age that isolates itself 
from the rest of the race and settles down upon itself, 
will accomplish but little towards the development of 
man or of truth. The individual who neglects to make 
himself acquainted with the history of men and of opin- 
ions, though he may be an intense man within a very 
narrow circumference, will make no real advance and no 
new discoveries. Even the ardor and zealous energy, 
often exhibited by such a mind, and, we may say, char- 
acteristic of it, contribute rather to its growing ignorance, 
than its growing enlightenment. For it is the ardor of a 
mind exclusively occupied with its own peculiar notions. 
Its zeal is begotten by individual peculiarities, and expen- 
ded upon them. Having no humble sense of its own 
limited ability, in comparison with the vastness of truth, 
or even in comparison with the power of the universal 
human mind, it closes itself against the great world of 
the past, and, as a penalty for this, hears but few of the 
deeper tones of the "many voiced present." In the 
midst of colors it is blind ; in the midst of sounds it is 
deaf. 

That mind, on the contrary, which is imbued with the 
enterprising spirit of history, contributes to the progress 
of truth and knowledge among men, by entering into the 
great process of inquiry and discovery which the race as 
such has begun and is carrying on. It moves onward 
with fellow-minds, in the line of a preceding advance, 
and consequently receives impulse from all the movement 
and momentum of the past. It joins on upon the truth 
which has actually been unfolded, and is thereby enabled 



THE HISTORIC SPIRIT. 65 

to make a positive and valuable addition to the existing 
knowledge of the human race. 

For the educated man, above all men, should see and 
constantly remember, that progress in the intellectual 
world, does not imply the discovery of truth absolutely new; 
of truth of which the human mind never had even 
an intimation before, and which came into it by a mortal 
leap, abrupt and startling, without antecedents and with- 
out premonitions. This would be rather of the nature 
of a Divine revelation than of a human discovery. A 
revelation from God is different in kind from a discovery 
of the human reason. It comes down from another 
sphere, from another mind, than that of man ; and, 
although it is conformed to the wants of the human race, 
can by no means be regarded as a natural development 
out of it ; as a merely historical process, like the origina- 
tion of a new form of government, or a new school of 
philosophy. A discovery of the human mind, on the 
contrary, is to be regarded as the pure, spontaneous, pro- 
duct of the human mind ; as one fold in its unfolding. 

It follows, consequently, that progress in human knowl- 
edge, progress in the development of human reason, does 
not imply the origination of truth absolutely and in all 
respects unknown before. The human mind has pre- 
sentiments ; dim intimations ; which thicken all along 
the track of human history like the hazy belt of the 
galaxy among the clear, sparkling, mapped, stars. These 
presentiments are a species and a grade of knowledge. — 
They are not distinct and stated knowledge, it is true, 
but they are by no means blank ignorance. The nebulae 
are visible, though not yet resolved. Especially is this 
true in regard to the mind of the race ; the general and 
historic mind. How often is the general mind restless 
and uneasy with the dim anticipation of the future dis- 



66 THE NATURE, AND INFLUENCE, OF 

covery ? This unrest, with its involved longing, and its 
potential knowledge, comes to its height, it is true, in 
the mind of some one individual who is most in posses- 
sion of the spirit of his time, and who is selected by 
Providence as the immediate instrument of the actual 
and stated discovery. But such an one is only the 
secondary cause of an effect, whose first cause lies lower 
down and more abroad. There were Reformers before 
the Reformation. Luther articulated himself upon a 
process that had already begun in the Christian church, 
and ministered to a want, and a very intelligent want 
too, that was already in existence. Columbus shared in 
the enterprising spirit of his time, and differed in degree, 
and not in kind, from the bold navigators among whom 
he was born and bred. That vision of the new world 
from the shores of old Spain ; that presentiment of the 
existence of another continent beyond the deep ; a pre- 
sentiment so strong as almost to justify the poetic 
extravagance of Schiller's sonnet,* in which he says, that 
the boding mind of the mariner would have created a 
continent, if there had been none in the trackless West 
to meet his anticipation ; that prophetic sentiment, Co- 
lumbus possessed, not as an isolated individual, but as a 
man who had grown up with his age and into his age ; 
whose teeming mind had been informed by the traditions 
of history, and whose active imagination had been fired 
by the strange narratives of anterior and contempora- 
neous navigation. 

Another proof of the position that the individual mind 
owes much of its inventiveness and originality to its 
ability to join on upon the invention and origination 
already in existence, is found in the fact, that some of 

* Columbus. 



THE HISTORIC SPIRIT. 67 

the most marked discoveries in science have occurred 
simultaneously to different minds. The dispute between 
the adherents of Newton and Leibnitz respecting prior- 
ity of discovery in the science of Fluxions, is hardly yet 
settled ; but the candid mind on either side will acknowl- 
edge that, be the mere matter of priority of detailed dis- 
covery and publication as it may, neither of these great 
minds was a servile plagiary. The Englishman, in re- 
gard to the German, thought alone and by himself; and 
the German, in regard to the Englishman, thought alone 
and by himself. But both thought in the light of past 
discoveries, and of all then existing mathematical knowl- 
edge. Both were under the laws and impulse of the 
general scientific mind, as that mind had manifested 
itself historically in preceding discoveries, and was 
now using them both as its organ of investigation and 
medium of distinct announced discovery. The dispute 
between the English and French chemists, respecting 
the comparative merits of Black and Lavoisier, is still 
kept up ; but here, too, candor must acknowledge that 
both were original investigators, and that an earlier death 
of either would not have prevented the discovery. 

Now in both of these instances the minds of individ- 
uals had been set upon the trail of the new discovery by 
history ; by a knowledge of the then present state and 
wants of science. They had kept up with the develop- 
ment of science ; they knew what had actually been 
achieved ; they saw what was still needed. They felt 
the wants of science, and these felt wants were dim an- 
ticipations of the supply, and finally led to it. It was 
because Newton and Leibnitz both labored in a historical 
line of direction, that they labored in the same line, and 
came to the same result, each of and by himself. For 
this historical basis for inquiry and discovery is common 



68 THE NATURE, AND INFLUENCE, OF 

to all. And as there is but one truth to be discovered, 
and but one high and royal road to it, it is not surpris- 
ing that often several minds should reach the goal sim- 
ultaneously. 

A striking instance of the productive power imparted 
to the individual mind by its taking the central position 
of history, is seen in the department of philosophy. In 
this department it is simply impossible, for the individ- 
ual thinker to make any advance unless he first make 
himself acquainted with what the human mind has al- 
ready accomplished in this sphere of investigation. With- 
out some adequate knowledge of the course which phi- 
losophic thought has already taken, the individual in- 
quirer in this oceanic region is all afloat. He does not 
even know where to begin, because he knows not where 
others have left off"; and the system of such a philoso- 
pher, if it contain truth, is most commonly but the dry 
repetition of some previous system. Originality and 
true progress here, as elsewhere, are impossible without 
history. Only when the individual has made his mind 
historic by working his way into that great main current 
of philosophic thought, which may be traced from Py- 
thagoras to Plato and Aristotle, from Aristotle to the 
Schoolmen, and from the Schoolmen to Bacon and 
Kant, and moving onward with it up to the point where 
the next stage of true progress and normal development 
is to join on ; only when he has thus found the proper 
point of departure in the present state of the science, is 
he prepared to depart, and to move forward on the 
straight but limitless line of philosophic inquiry. It is 
for this reason that the speculative systems of Germany 
exhibit such productiveness and originality. Whatever 
opinion may be held respecting the correctness of the 
Germanic mind in this department, no one can deny its 



THE HISTORIC SPIRIT. 69 

fertility. The Teutonic philosopher first prepares for the 
appearance of his system, by a history of philosophy in 
the past, and then aims to make his own system the 
crown and completion of the entire historic process ; the 
last link of the long chain. It is true that, in every in- 
stance thus far in the movement of this philosophy, the 
intended last link has only served as the support of an- 
other and still other links, yet only in this way of historic 
preparation could such a productive method of philoso- 
phizing have been attained. Only from the position of 
history, even though it be falsely conceived, can the spec- 
ulative reason construct new and original systems. 

A good illustration of the defectiveness which must 
attach to a system of philosophy, when it is not conceiv- 
ed and constructed in the light of the history of philoso- 
phy, is seen in the so-called Scotch school. A candid 
mind must admit that the spirit and general aim of this 
system was sound and correct. It was a reaction against 
the sensual school, especially as that system had been 
run out to its logical extreme in France. It recognized 
and made much of first truths, and that faculty of the 
mind which the ablest teacher of this school loosely de- 
nominated Common Sense, and still more loosely defin- 
ed, was unquestionably meant to be a power higher than 
that which "judges according to sense." But it was not 
an original system, in the sense of grasping with a 
stronger and more scientific grasp than had ever been 
done before, upon the standing problems of philosophy. 
It is true that it addressed itself to the solution of the 
old problems, in the main, in the right spirit and from a 
deep interest in the truth, but it did not go low enough 
down, and did not get near enough to the heart of 
the difficulty, to constitute it an original and powerful 
system of speculation. Its greatest defect is the lack of 



70 THE NATURE, AND INFLUENCE, OF 

a scientific spirit, which is indicated in the fact that, 
although it has exerted a wide influence upon the popu- 
lar mind, it has exerted but little influence upon the phi- 
losophic mind, either of Great Britain or the Continent. 
And this defect is to be traced chiefly to the lack of 
an extensive and profound knowledge of the history of 
philosophic speculation. The individual mind, in this 
instance, attempted a refutation of the acute arguments 
of scepticism, without much knowledge of the previous 
developments of the sceptical understanding and the 
counter-statements of true philosophy. A comprehen- 
sive and reproductive study of the ancient Grecian philo- 
sophies, together with the more elaborate and profound 
of the modern systems, would have been a preparatory 
discipline for the Scottish reason that would have armed 
it with a far more scientific and original power. Its 
aim, in the first place, would have been higher, because 
its sense of the difficulty to be overcome would have 
been far more just and adequate. With more knowledge 
of what the human intellect had already accomplished, 
both on the side of truth and of error, its reflection would 
have been more profound ; its point of view more cen- 
tral ; its distinctions and definitions more philosophical 
and scientific ; and its refutations more conclusive and 
unanswerable.* 



* This deficiency in scientific character, in the Scotch philosophy, is felt 
by its present and ablest defender, Sir William Hamilton. More deeply 
imbued with the spirit of the department than either Reid or Stewart was, 
because of a wider and more thorough scholarship than either of them pos- 
sessed, he has been laboring to give it what it lacks. But it is more than 
doubtful whether any mind that denies the possibility of metaphysics as 
distinguished from psychology, will be able to do much towards imparting 
a necessary and scientific character either to philosophy generally, or to a 
system which is popular rather than philosophic, in its foundations and su- 
perstructure. 






THE HISTORIC SPIRIT. 71 

Thus we might examine all the departments of hu- 
man knowledge, singly by themselves, and we should 
find that, in regard to each of them, the individual mind 
is made at once recipient and original by the preparatory 
discipline of historical studies and the possession of the 
historic spirit. Even in the domain of Literature and 
Fine Art, the mind that keeps up with the progress of 
the nation or the race ; the mind that is able to go along 
with the great process of national or human development 
in this department ; is the original and origin ant mind. 
Although in Poetry and Fine Art, freshness and original- 
ity seem to depend more upon the impulse of individual 
genius and less upon the general movement of the na- 
tional or the universal mind, yet here, too, it is a fact, 
that the founders of particular schools ; we mean schools 
of eminent and historic merit ; have been men of exten- 
sive study, and liberal, universal sympathies. The great 
masters of the several schools of Italian Art, were dili- 
gent students of the Antique, and had minds open to 
truth and nature in all the schools that preceded them. 
They, moreover, cherished a historic feeling and spirit, by 
a most intimate and general intercourse with each other. 
The earnest rivalry that prevailed, sprung up from a 
close study of each other's productions. The view which 
Cellini presents us of the relations of the Italian artists 
to each other, and of the general spirit that prevailed 
among them, shows that there was very little that was 
bigoted and individual in those minds so remarkable for 
originality and productiveness within their own sphere. 

A very fine and instructive illustration of the truth we 
are endeavoring to establish, is found in the department 
of literature in the poet Wordsworth. This man was a 
student. He cultivated the poetic faculty within him as 
sedulously as Newton cultivated the scientific genius 



72 THE NATURE, AND INFLUENCE, OF 

within him. He retired up into the mountains, when he 
had once determined to make poetry the aim of his lite- 
rary life, and by the thoughtful perusal of the English 
poets, as much as by his brooding contemplation of ex- 
ternal nature, enlarged and strengthened his poetic power. 
By familiarizing himself with the spirit and principle, 
the inward history, of English poetry, he became largely 
imbued with the national spirit. And he was thorough 
in this course of study. He not only devoted himself to 
the works of the first English poets, the Chaucers, Spen- 
sers, Shakspeares and Miltons ; but he patiently studied 
the productions of the second class, so much neglected 
by Englishmen, the Draytons, the Daniels, and the 
Donnes. The works of these latter are not distinguished 
for passion in sentiment or beauty in form, but they are 
remarkable for that thoroughly English property, thought- 
ful sterling sense. Wordsworth was undoubtedly at- 
tracted to these poets, not merely because he believed, 
with that most philosophic of English critics who was 
his friend and contemporary, that good sense is the body 
of poetry, but because he saw that an acquaintance with 
them was necessary to a thorough knowledge of Eng- 
lish poetry considered as a historic process of develop- 
ment, as one phase of the English mind. For, although a 
poem like the Polyolbion of Drayton can by no means 
be put into the first class with the Faery Queen of 
Spenser, it yet contains more of the English temper, and 
exhibits more of the flesh and muscle of the native mind. 
These writers Wordsworth had patiently studied, as is 
indicated by that vein of strong sense which runs like a 
muscular cord through the more light and airy texture 
of his musings. It was because of this historical train- 
ing as a poet, that Wordsworth's poetry breathes a far 
loftier and ampler spirit than it would have done had it 



THE HISTORIC SPIRIT. 73 

been like that of Byron, for example, the product of an 
intense, but ignorant and narrow, individualism. And 
it was also because of this training, that Wordsworth, 
while preserving as original an individuality, certainly, as 
any writer of his time, acquired a much more national 
and universal poetic spirit than any of his contemporaries, 
and was the most productive poet of his age. 

The result, then, of the discussion of the subject un- 
der this head is, that the individual mind acquires power 
of discernment and power of statement only by enter- 
ing into a process already going on ; into the great main 
movement of the common human mind. In no way can 
the educated man become genially recipient, and at the 
same time richly productive, but by a profound study of 
the development which truth has already attained in the 
history of man and the world. 

III. The third characteristic of the historical mind is 
its union of moderation and enthusiasm. 

One of the most distinct and impressive teachings of 
history is, that not every opinion which springs up and has 
currency in a particular age, is true for all time. History 
records thv3 rise and great popularity, for a while, of ma- 
ny a theory which succeeding ages have consigned to 
oblivion, and which has exerted no permanent influence 
upon human progress. There always are, among the 
opinions and theories prevalent in any particular period, 
some, and perhaps many, that have not truth enough in 
them to preserve them. And yet these may be tne very 
ones that seize upon the individual and local mind with 
most violence and most immediate effect. Because they 
are partial and narrow, they for this reason grasp the 
popular mind more fiercely and violently. Were they 
broader and more universal in their character, their im- 
mediate influence might be less visible, because it would 



74 THE NATURE, AND INFLUENCE, OF 

extend over a far wider surface, and go down to a much 
lower depth. A blow upon a single point makes a deep 
dint, but displaces very few particles of matter, while a 
steady heavy pressure over the whole surface, changes 
the position of every atom, with but little superficial 
change. 

The proper posture, therefore, of the individual mind, 
and, especially, of the educated mind, towards the current 
opinions of the age in which he lives, is, that of modera- 
tion. The educated man should keep his mind equable, 
and, in some degree, aloof from passing views and theo- 
ries. He ought not to allow theories that have just come 
into existence to seize upon his understanding with all 
that assault and onset with which they take captive the 
uneducated, and, especially, the unhistoric mind. Ot 
what use are the teachings of history if they do not serve 
to render the mind prudently distrustful in regard to new- 
born opinions, at the same time that they throw it wide 
open and fill it with a strong confidence towards all that 
has historically proved itself to be true ? Is it for the 
cultivated man, the man of broad and general views, to 
throw himself without reserve and with all his weight, 
into what, for aught he yet knows, may be only a cross- 
current and eddy, instead of the main stream of truth ? 

Now it is only by the possession of a historic spirit 
that the individual can keep himself sufficiently above 
the course of things about him, to enable him to judge 
correctly concerning them. Knowing what the human 
mind has already accomplished in a particular direction, 
in art or science, in philosophy or religion, he very soon 
sees whether the particular movement of the time in any 
one of these directions, will or will not coincide with the 
preceding movement and be concurrent with it. He 
occupies a height, a vantage ground, by virtue of his 



THE HISTORIC SPIRIT. 75 

extensive historical knowledge, and be stands upon it, 
not with the tremor and fervor of a partisan, but with 
the calmness and insight of a judge. Suppose the activ- 
ity of an age, or of an individual, manifests itself in the 
production of a new theory in religion, of some new 
statement of Christian doctrine, the mind that is well 
versed in the history of the Christian church, and of 
Christian doctrine, will very quickly see whether the 
new joins on upon the old ; whether it is an advance in 
the line of progress or a deviation from it. And his 
attitude will be accordingly. He will not be led astray 
with the multitude or even with the age. Through all 
the fervor and zeal of the period, he will preserve a mod- 
erate and temperate tone of mind ; committing himself 
to current opinions no faster than he sees they will 
amalgamate with the truth which the human mind has 
already and confessedly discovered in past ages ; with 
historic truth. 

This moderation in adopting and maintaining current 
opinions is an infallible characteristic of a true scholar, 
•of a ripe culture. And it is the fruit of that criticism and 
scepticism which is generated by historical study. For 
it is one of the effects of such studies to render the mind 
critical and sceptical ; not, indeed, in respect to truth that 
has stood the test of time, but to truth that has just made 
its appearance. It would be untrue to say that the study 
of history genders absolute doubt and unbelief in the 
mind ; that it tends generally and by its very nature to 
unsettle faith in the good and the true. This would be 
the case if there were no truth in the science ; if it were 
substantially the record of dissension and disagreement ; 
if, above the din and uproar of discordant voices, on* 
clear and clarion-like voice did not make itself heard as 
the voice of universal history. We are all familiar with 



76 THE NATURE, AND INFLUENCE, OF 

the story told of Raleigh, who is said to have destroyed 
the unpublished half of his work, because of several 
persons who professed to describe an occurrence in the 
Tower Court, which he had also witnessed from his 
prison window, each gave a different version of it, and 
his own differed from theirs. But history is not thus 
uncertain and unreliable. It teaches but one lesson. It 
reveals but one truth. Down through the ages and 
generations it traces one straight line, and in this one 
line of direction lies truth, and out of it lies error. Its 
record of the successes and triumphs of truth certainly 
teaches a correct lesson, and its record of the successes 
and triumphs of error is but the dark background from 
which truth stands out in still more bold and impressive 
reality. "Whatever may be the case with particular 
accounts by particular individuals, the main current of 
this science runs in one direction, and its great lesson is 
in favor of truth and righteousness. 

Not, then, towards well-tried and well-established truth, 
but towards apparent and newly-discovered truth, does 
history engender criticism and scepticism. The past is 
secure. That which has verified itself by the lapse of 
time, and the course of experiment, and the sifting of 
investigation, is commended as absolute and universal 
truth to the individual mind, and history bids it to 
believe and doubt not. But that which is current merely ; 
that which in the novelty and youth of its existence is 
carrying all men away ; must stand trial, must be brought 
to test, as all its predecessors have been. Towards the 
opinions and theories of the present, so far as they vary 
from those of the past, the historical mind is inquisitive, 
and critical, and sceptical, not for the purpose, be it 
remembered, of proving them to be false, but with the 
generous hope of evincing them to be true. For the 



THE HISTORIC SPIRIT. 77 

scepticism of history is very different from scepticism in 
religion. The latter is always in some way biassed and 
interested. It springs out of a desire, conscious or uncon- 
scious, to overthrow that which the general mind has 
found to be true, and is resting in as truth. Scepticism 
in religion has always been in the minority ; at war with 
the received opinions of the race, and consequently with 
all that is historic. There never was an individual scep- 
tic, from Pyrrho to Strauss, who was not unhistorical ; 
who did not take his stand outside of the great travelled 
road of human opinion ; who did not try to disturb the 
human race in the possession of opinions that had come 
down from the beginning, besides having all the instincts 
of reason to corroborate them. But the scepticism of 
history has no desire to overthrow any opinion that has 
verified itself in the course of ages, and been organically 
assimilated, in the course of human development. All 
such opinion and all such truth constitutes the very sub- 
stance of the science itself ; its very vitality and charm 
for the human mind ; and, therefore, can never be the 
object of doubt or attack for genuine historic scepticism. 
On the contrary, these sifting and critical methods have 
no yther end or aim but to make a real addition to the 
existing stock of well-ascertained truth, and to prevent 
any erroneous opinion or theory from going into this 
sum-total, and thus receiving the sterling stamp and 
endorsement. This criticism and scepticism is simply 
for self-protection. These sceptical and sifting processes 
are gone through with, to preserve an all-sided science 
pure from the individual, the local, and the temporary, 
and to keep it universal and absolute in its contents and 
spirit. 

Now it might seem at first glance, that this modera- 
tion of mind towards current opinions would preclude all 



78 THE. NATURE, AND INFLUENCE, OF 

earnestness and enthusiasm in the educated man ; thai 
the historic spirit must necessarily be cold and phlegma- 
tic. It might seem that it would be impossible for such 
a mind to take an active and vigorous interest in the 
age in which it lived, and that it would be out of its 
element amid the stir and motion going on all around it. 
This is substantially the objection which the half-educat- 
ed disciple of the present brings against history and his- 
torical views and opinions. 

But this is a view that is false from defect ; from not 
containing the whole truth. It arises from not taking 
the full idea of the science into the mind. This idea, 
like all strictly so-called ideas, contains two opposites, 
which, to the superficial glance, look like irreconcilable 
contraries, but to a deeper and more adequate intuition, 
are not only perfectly reconcilable, but are opposites in 
whose conciliation consists the vitality and fertility of 
the idea, and of the science founded upon it. History, 
as we have seen, is both continuous and complete ; and 
continuity and completeness are opposite conceptions. — 
It is, in the first place, the record of a development that 
must unintermittently go on, and cannot cease, until the 
final consummation. And it is, in the second place, 
complete in its spirit, because at every point in the con- 
tinuous process there are indications of the consumma- 
tion ; tendencies to an ultimate end. No part of history 
is irrelative. Even when it is but the account of a par- 
ticular period, a small section of the great historic process, 
it exhibits this complete and universal spirit by clinging 
to what precedes and pointing to what succeeds ; by its 
large discourse of reason looking before and after. But 
the objector does not reconcile these opposites in his 
own mind ; he does not take this comprehensive and full 
view of the subject. Whether he acknowledges it or not 



THE HISTORIC SPIRIT. 79 

his view really is, that the many several ages of which 
history takes cognizance, have no inward connection with 
each other, nor any common tendency, and consequently 
that the whole entire past, in relation to the present, is a 
nonentity. It is gone, with all that it was and did, into 
" the dark backward and abysm " of time, and the present 
age, like every other, starts independent and alone upon 
its particular mission. His view of history is atomic. — 
On his theory, there is no such thing as either connected 
evolution or explanatory termination, in the course of the 
world. There is no human race, no common humanity, 
to be manifested in the millions of individuals, and the 
multitudes of ages and epochs. On this theory, there is 
and can be nothing in the past, in which the present has 
any vital interest ; nothing in the past which has any 
authority for the present ; nothing in the past which con- 
stitutes the root of the present, and nothing in the present 
which constitutes the germ of the future. History, on 
this theory, has no principle ; no organization. It is a 
mere catalogue of events ; a mere list of occurrences. 

It is because the imperfectly educated disciple of the 
present, really takes this view, that he asserts that his- 
toric views and opinions are deadening in their influence 
upon the mind, and that the historic spirit is a lifeless 
spirit. If he believed in a living concatenation of events 
and a vital propagation of influences, he would not say 
that that which is truly historical, is virtually dead and 
buried. If he believed that no one age, any more than 
any one individual, contains the whole of human devel- 
opment within itself, but is only one fold of the great 
unfolding, he would suspect, at least, that there might be 
elements in the past so assimilated and wrought into the 
nistory of universal man that they are matters of living 
interest for every present age. If he believed that truth 



80 THE NATURE, AND INFLUENCE, OF 

is reached only by the successive and consentaneous 
endeavors of many individual minds, each making use 
of all the labors of its predecessors, and each taking up 
the standing problem where its predecessors had dropped 
it ; if the too zealous disciple of the present believed that 
truth is thus reached only by the efforts of the race ; of 
the universal mind in distinction from the individual ; he 
would find life all along the line of human history ; he 
would see that in taking into his mind a historic view or 
opinion he was lodging there the highest intensity of 
mental life; the very purest and densest reason of the 
race. 

Instead, therefore, of being cold, phlegmatical and life- 
less, the historical mind is really the only truly living and 
enthusiastic mind. It is the only mind that is in com- 
munication. It is the only mind that is not isolated. — 
And in the mental world, intercommunication is not 
more necessary to a vital process, and isolation or break- 
ing off is not more destructive of a vital process, than in 
the world of nature. That zeal, begotten by the narrow 
views of an individual, or a locality, or an age, which the 
unhistorical mind exhibits, is an altogether different thing 
from the enthusiasm of a spirit enlarged, educated, and 
liberalized, by an acquaintance with all ages and opin- 
ions. Enthusiasm springs out of the contemplation of a 
whole ; zeal from the examination of a part. And there 
is no surer test and sign of intellectual vitality than 
enthusiasm ; that deep and sustained interest which is 
grounded in the broad views and profound intuitions of 
history. 

But while the well-read student of history preserves a 
wise and cautious moderation, in the outset, towards 
current opinions, yet, because of this genial and enthusi- 
astic interest in the truth which the human mind has 



THE HISTORIC SPIRIT. 81 

actually and without dispute arrived at, he in the end 
comes to take all the interest in the views and theories 
of the present, which they really deserve. The historical 
mind does no ultimate injustice. So far and so fast as 
it finds that the new movement of the present age is a 
natural continuation of the unfinished development of 
the past, does he acknowledge it as a step in advance, 
and receives the new element into his mind and into his 
culture with all the enthusiasm and all the feeling with 
which he adopts the great historic systems of antiquity. 
In this way the historical mind is actually more truly 
alive and interested even in relation to the present, than 
the man of the present. It appreciates the real excel- 
lence of the time more intelligently and profoundly, and 
it certainly has a far more inspiriting view of the connec- 
tion of this excellence with the excellence that has pre- 
ceded it, and which is the root of it. How much more 
inspiring and enlivening is that vision which sees the 
progress of the present linked to that of all the past, and 
contributing to make up that long line of development 
extending through the whole career of the human species, 
than that vision which sees but one thing at a time, and 
does not even know that it has any living references, or 
any organic connections whatever ! 

As an exemplification of the preceding remarks, con- 
template for a moment the historian Niebuhr. His 
was a genuinely historical mind. lie conceived and con- 
structed in the true spirit of history. He always viewed 
events in the light of the organization by which they 
were shaped and of which they were elementary parts. 
He saw by a native sagacity, in which respect he never 
had a superior, the idea lying at the bottom of a histori- 
cal process ; such, for example, as the separate founda- 
tion of the city ot Rome ; the rise and formation of the 



82 THE NATURE, AND INFLUENCE, OF 

Roman population ; the growth and consolidation of the 
plebeians ; and built up his account of it, out of it and 
upon it. His written history thus corresponds with a 
fresh and vital correspondence with the actual history ; 
with the living process itself. In this way he reproduced 
human life in his pages, and the student is carried along 
through the series with all the interest and charm of an 
actor in it. So sagacious was his intuition that, although 
two thousand years further off from them in time, he has 
unquestionably so reconstructed the very facts of the 
early history of Rome, as to bring them nearer the actual 
matter of fact, than they appear in the legendary pages 
of Livy. It was the habit of his mind, both by nature 
and by an acquisition as minute as it was vast, to look 
at human life as an indivisible process, and to connect 
together all the ages, empires, civilizations, and literatures, 
of the secular world by the bond of a common develop- 
ment ; thus organizing the immense amount of material 
contained in human history into a complete and symme- 
trical whole. 

But slow and sequacious as the movements of such an 
organizing and thoroughly historic mind were, and must 
be from the nature of the case, we do not hesitate to 
affirm that the historian Niebuhr was one of the most 
vividly alive and profoundly enthusiastic minds in all 
literary history. He was not spared to complete his 
great work as it lay in him to have done, and as he 
would have done, immense as it was, had he lived to the 
appointed age of man. He left it a fragment. He left 
it a Torso which no man can complete. But from that 
fragment has gushed, as from many living centres, all 
the life and power not only of Roman history, but of his- 
tory generally, since his day. It gave an impulse to this 
vhole department which it still continues to feel, besides 



THE HISTORIC SPIEIT. 83 

reproducing itself in particular schools and particular in- 
dividuals. It is the work which more than any other 
one production, shaped the opinions of the most vigorous 
and enthusiastic of English historians, the late Dr. Ar- 
nold. And that serious spirit which we find in the sci- 
ence itself since the days of Niebuhr, when compared 
with the moral indifference characterizing it before his 
day and to a great extent during his day, is to be traced 
to his reverent recognition of a personal Deity in history, 
and his deep belief in the freedom and accountability of 
man. 

But the man himself, as well as his works, was full of 
life, and he showed it nowhere more plainly than in his 
direct address to the minds of his pupils. " When he 
spoke," says one of them, " it always appeared as if the 
rapidity with which the thoughts occurred to him, ob- 
structed his power of communicating them in regular 
order or succession. Nearly all his sentences, therefore, 
were anacoluths ; for, before having finished one, he be- 
gan another, perpetually mixing up one thought with an- 
other, without producing any one in its complete form. 
This peculiarity was more particularly striking when he 
was laboring under any mental excitement, which occur- 
red the oftener, as, with his great sensitiveness, he felt 
that warmth of interest in treating of the history of past 
ages, which we are accustomed to witness only in dis- 
cussions on the political affairs of our own time and 
country." The writer, after speaking of the difficulty of 
following him, owing to his rapid, and it should be ad- 
ded, entirely extemporaneous delivery (for he spoke with- 
out a scrap of paper before him), remarks, that " notwith- 
standing this deficiency of Niebuhr as a lecturer, there 
was an indescribable charm in the manner in which he 
treated his subject ; the warmth of his feelings, the sym- 



84 



pathy which he felt with the persons and things he wa? 
speaking of, his strong conviction of the truth of what 
he was saying, his earnestness, and, above all, the vivid- 
ness with which he conceived and described the charac- 
ters of the most prominent men, who were to him living 
realities, with souls, feelings and passions like ourselves, 
carried his hearers away, and produced effects which are 
usually the results only of the most powerful oratory.* " 

How different from all this is the impression which we 
receive from the mind of one who, notwithstanding his 
great defects, must yet thus far be regarded as the first of 
English historians ; from the mind of Gibbon. After a 
candid and full allowance of the ability of that mind and 
the great value of the History of the Decline and Fall of 
Rome, it must yet be said that it was not a vivid and 
vital mind, nor is its product. The autobiography of 
Gibbon, indeed, exhibits considerable native liveliness, 
but the perusal of his history does not even suggest the 
existence of such qualities as earnestness and enthusiasm. 
One is disposed to conclude from the picture which he 
gives of himself, that the historian had been endowed by 
his Maker with a more than average share of mental 
freshness and vitality, and most certainly if there had 
been in exercise enough of this quality ; enough of the vis 
vivida vitce; to have vivified his immense well-selected and 
well-arranged material, he would have approximated near- 
er than he has to the ideal of historical composition. But 
there was not, and, therefore, it is, that, throughout the 
whole of this great work, there reigns, so far as the hu- 
man and moral interest of history is concerned, so far 
as all its higher religious problems are concerned, an ut- 
ter sluggishness, apathy, and lifelessness ; an apathy and 

* Dr. Leonhard Schmitz. Preface to Vol. IV. of Niebuhr's Rome. 



THE HISTORIC SPIRIT. 85 

Iifelessness as deep, unvarying, and monotonous, as if the 
forces of the period he described, the principles of decline 
and decay, had passed over into his own understanding 
and made it the theatre of their operations. We doubt 
whether there is another work in any literature whatever, 
possessing so many substantial excellences, and yet char- 
acterized by such a total destitution of glowing inspira- 
tion and earnest enthusiasm, as the History of the De- 
cline and Fall of the Roman Empire. 

The explanation of this fact will corroborate the truth 
of the position, that the genuinely historic mind is the only 
truly living and enthusiastic mind. Though nominally 
a historian, Gibbon was really utterly unhistorical in his 
spirit. His religious scepticism, besides paralyzing what- 
ever natural vigor and earnestness of conception may have 
originally belonged to him, made it impossible for him to 
regard the processes of human life as so many parts of one 
grand plan of the world formed by one supreme presiding 
mind. History for him, consequently, had no organization 
and no moral significance. It was, therefore, strictly speak- 
ing, no history at all for him ; no course of development 
with a divine plan at the bottom of it and a divine pur- 
pose at the termination of it. It was neither continuous in 
its nature, nor complete in its spirit and tendency. Every- 
thing that occurred in the world at large, or among a 
particular people, was for his mind irreferent, discontinu- 
ous, and sporadic. Not only did he fail to connect the 
History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire 
with the general history of the race, or even with the 
general history of Rome, by exhibiting it in its relation 
to its antecedents and consequents, but he failed even to 
detect the historic principle lying at the bottom of the 
particular period itself. The great moral and political 
causes of the decline and fall of the Roman empire, do 



86 THE NATURE, AND INFLUENCE, OF 

not stand out in bold and striking relief from the im 
mense erudition and imposing rhetoric of that work. 
The reflecting reader, at the close of its perusal, feels the 
need of something more than a scenic representation of 
the period; something more than the pomp of a panora- 
ma ; in order to a knowledge of the deep ground of all this 
decline and decay. He needs, in short, what Gibbon 
does not furnish, more of the philosophy of that organic 
decline, drawn from a profounder view of the nature 
of man and of human life, united with a deeper insight 
into the radical defect in the political constitution of the 
"Roman empire; into that germ of corruption which came 
into existence immediately after the subjugation of the 
Italian tribes was completed, and in which the entire 
millennium of decline and decay lay coiled up. 

We have thus far discussed the nature of the historic 
spirit on general grounds. We have mentioned only 
those general characteristics which are matters of inter- 
est to every cultivated mind ; having reference chiefly to 
secular history and general education. We have now to 
speak of the importance of this spirit to the theologian, 
and must, therefore, discuss its more special nature, with 
a prevailing reference to Ecclesiastical History and Theo- 
logical Education. 

Before proceeding to the treatment of this part of the 
subject, it seems necessary to direct attention, for a mo- 
ment, to the distinguishing difference between Secular 
and Church history. 

Our Lord, in the most distinct manner, and repeatedly, 
affirms that His kingdom is not of this world. Through- 
out the Scriptures the church and the world are opposed 
to each other as direct contraries, mutually exclusive and 
expulsive of each other, so that " all that is in the world is 
not of the Father, but is of the world." There are, therefore. 



THE HISTORIC SPIRIT. 87 

two kingdoms, two courses of development, two histo- 
ries, in the universal history of man on the globe. There 
is the account of the natural and spontaneous develop- 
ment of human nature as left to itself, guided only by 
the dictates of finite reason and impelled by the determi- 
nation of the free, but fallen, human will, and the im- 
pulses of human passion. And there is the history of 
that supernatural and gracious development of human 
nature which has been begun and carried forward by 
means of a revelation from the Divine Mind made effec- 
tual by the direct efficiency of the Divine Spirit. The 
fact of sin, and the fact of redemption, constitute the 
substance of that great historic process which is involv- 
ed in the origin, growth and final triumph of the Chris- 
tian church. Had there been no fall of man, there would 
have been but one stream of history. The spontaneou 
development of the human race would have been normal 
and perfect, and there would have been no such distinc- 
tion between the church and world as is recognized in 
Scripture. The race would not have been broken apart ; 
one portion being left to a merely human and entirely 
false development, and the other portion being renovated 
and started upon a spiritual and heavenward career by 
the electing love of God. But sin in this, as in all its 
aspects, is dissension and dismemberment. The original 
unity of the race, so far as a common religious character 
and a common blessed destiny are concerned, is destroyed, 
and the two halves of one being, to borrow an illustra- 
tion from the Platonic myth, are now and forever sepa- 
rated. The original single stream of human history was 
parted in the garden of Eden, and became into two 
heads, which have flowed on, each in its own channel, 
and will continue to do so, forevermore. For, although 
the church is to encroach upon the world, in the future. 



88 THE NATURE, AND INFLUENCE, OF 

to an extent far surpassing anything that appears in the 
present and the past, we know, from the very best au- 
thority, that sin is to be an eternal fact in the universe 
of God, and as such must have its own awful arid 
isolated development ; its own awful and isolated history. 

In passing, therefore, from secular to church history, 
we pass from the domain of merely human and sinful, 
to that of truly divine and holy, agencies. The subject- 
matter becomes extraordinary. The basis of fact in the 
career of the church is supernatural in both senses of the 
word. From the expulsion from Eden down to the close 
of miracles in the apostolic age, a positively miraculous 
intervention of Divine power lies under the series of 
events ; momentarily withdrawn and momentarily reap- 
pearing, throughout the long line of Patriarchal, Jewish 
and Apostolic history ; the very intermittency of the ac- 
tion indicating, like an Icelandic Geyser, the reality and 
constant proximity of the power. And if we pass from 
external events to that inward change that was con- 
stantly brought about in human character by which the 
church was called curt from the mass of men and made 
to live and grow in the midst of an ignorant or a culti- 
vated heathenism ; if we pass from the miraculous to the 
simply spiritual manifestation of the Divine agency as it is 
seen in the inward life of the church, we find that we are 
in a far higher sphere than that of secular history. There 
is now a positive intercommunication between the hu- 
man and the Divine mind, and the development which 
results constitutes a history far profounder, far purer and 
holier, far more encouraging and glorious, than that of 
the natural man and the secular world. 

It is upon the fact of this direct and supernatural com- 
munication of the Supreme mind to the human mind, 
and this direct agency of the Divine Spirit upon the hu- 



THE HISTORIC SPIRIT. 89 

man soul, that we would take our stand as the point of 
departure in the remainder of this discussion. In treat- 
ing of secular history, we have regarded the unaided rea- 
son of man as the source and origin of the development. 
We do not find in the history of the world, as the Scrip- 
tural antithesis of the church, any evidence of any spe- 
cial and direct intercommunication between man and 
God. We find only the ordinary workings of the hu- 
man mind and such products as are confessedly within 
its competence to originate. We can, indeed, see the 
hand of an overruling Providence throughout this realm, 
employed chiefly in restraining the wrath of man, but 
through the whole long course of development we see no 
signs or products of a supernatural and peculiar inter- 
ference of God in the affairs of men. Empires rise and 
fall ; arts and sciences bloom and decay ; the poet dreams 
his dream of the ideal, and the philosopher develops 
and tasks the utmost possibility of the finite reason ; and 
still, so far as its highest interests are concerned, the con- 
dition and history of the race remain substantially the 
same. It is not until a communication is established 
between the mind of man and the mind of God ; it is not 
until the Creator comes down by miracle and by revela- 
tion, by incarnation and by the Holy Ghost, that a new 
order of ages and a new species of history begins. 

The Scriptures, therefore, as the revelation of the 
Eternal Mind, take the place of human reason within 
the sphere of church history. The individual man sus- 
tains the same relation to the Bible, in the sacred historic 
process, that he does to natural reason in the secular. 
The theologian expects to find in the history of the 
church that same comprehensive and approximately 
exhaustive development and realization of Scripture 
truth, which the philosopher hopes to find of the finite 



90 THE NATURE, AND INFLUENCE, OF 

reason in the secular history of the race. It follows, con- 
sequently, that all that has been said of the influence of 
historical studies upon the literary man, applies with full 
force, when the distinguishing difference between secular 
and sacred history has been taken into account, to the 
education and culture of the theologian. The same 
spirit will work with the same results in both depart- 
ments of knowledge, and the theologian, like the literary 
man, will become, in his own intellectual domain, both 
reverent and vigilant ; both recipient and original ; both 
deliberate and enthusiastic ; as his mind feels the influ- 
ences that come off from the history of the Christian 
religion and the Christian church. 

Without, therefore, going again over the ground which 
we have travelled in the first part of the discourse, let us 
leave the general influences and characteristics of the 
historic spirit, and proceed to consider some of the most 
important of its specific influences within the depart- 
ment of theology and upon theological education. And, 
that we may not be embarrassed by the attempt to make 
use of all the materials that crowd in upon the mind on 
all sides, and from all parts, of this encyclopaedic subject, 
let us leave altogether untouched the external career of 
the church, and keep chiefly in view that most interest- 
ing and important branch of the department which is 
denominated Doctrinal Church History. 

I. In the first place, a historic spirit within the depart- 
ment of theology promotes Scripturality. 

We have already mentioned that the distinctive char- 
acter of church history arises from the special presence 
and agency of the Divine Mind in the world. Subtract 
that presence, and that agency, and nothing is left but 
the spontaneous development of the natural man ; noth- 
ing is left but secular history. Divine revelation, using 



THE HISTORIC SPIRIT. 91 

the term in its widest signification, to denote the entire 
communication of God to man in the economy of grace, 
is the principle and germ of church history. That shap- 
ing of human events, and that formation and moulding 
of human character, which has resulted from the coven- 
ant of redemption, is the substance of sacred history. The 
church is the concrete and realized plan of redemption ; 
and what is the plan of redemption but the sum-total of 
revelations which have been made to man by the Jehovah 
of the Old Testament and the Incarnate Word of the 
New, the infallible record of which is unchangeably fixed 
in the Scriptures? It follows, therefore, that the true 
and full history of the church of God on earth will be 
the Scriptures in the concrete. The plant is only the 
unfolded germ. 

There is, consequently, no surer way to fill systematic 
theology with a Scriptural substance than to subject it 
to the influence of historical studies. As the theologian 
passes the several ages of the church in review, and 
becomes acquainted with the results to which the general 
mind of the church has come in interpreting the Scrip- 
tures, he runs little hazard of error in regard to their real 
teaching and contents. As in the domain of secular his- 
tory we found that there was little danger of missing the 
true teachings of human reason, if we collect them from 
the continuous and self-defecating development of ages 
and epochs, so in the domain of sacred history we shall 
find that the real mind of the Spirit, the real teaching of 
Scripture, comes out plainer and clearer in the general 
growth and development of the Christian mind. Indeed 
we may regard church history, so far as it is mental and 
inward in its nature ; so far as it is the record of a mentaJ 
inquiry into the nature of Christianity and the contents 
of the Bible ; as being as near to the infallibility of the 



92 THE NATURE, AND INFLUENCE, OF 

written revelation, as anything that is still imperfect and 
fallible can be. The church is not infallible and nevei 
can be ; but it is certainly not a very bold or dangerous 
affirmation to say that the church, the entire body of 
Christ, is wiser than any one of its members, and that 
the whole series of ages and generations of believers 
have penetrated more deeply into the substance of the 
Christian religion and have come nearer to an approxi- 
mate exhaustion of Scripture truth, than any single age 
or single believer has. 

So far, therefore, as a theological system contains his- 
torical elements, it is likely to contain Scriptural elements. 
So far as its statements of doctrine coincide with those 
of the creeds and symbols in which the wise, the learned, 
and the holy, of all ages have embodied the results of 
their continuous and self-correcting study of the Scrip- 
tures, so far it may be expected to coincide with the 
substance of inspiration itself. 

Again, there is no surer way to imbue the theologian 
himself with a Scriptural spirit than to subject his mind 
to the full influence of a course of study in the history of 
the Christian religion and church. This is one of the 
best means which the individual mind can employ to 
reach the true end of a theological education ; which is 
to get within the circle of inspired minds and see the 
truth exactly as they saw it. We believe, as the church 
has always believed, that the inspired writers were 
qualified and authorized to speak upon the subject of 
religion as no other human minds have been. They 
were the subjects of an illumination clearer and brighter 
than that of the purest Christian experience ; and of a 
revelation that put them in possession of truths that are 
absolutely beyond the ken of the wisest human mind. — 
Within that inspired circle, therefore, there was a body 



THE HISTORIC SPIRIT. 93 

of knowledge intrinsically inaccessible to the human 
mind; beyond the reach of its subtlest investigation, or 
its purest self-development. If those supernaturally taught 
minds had been prevented from fixing their knowledge in 
a written form ; or if the written revelation had perished 
like the lost books of Livy; the human mind of the 
nineteenth century would have known no more upon 
moral and religious subjects, for substance, than the 
human mind of a Plato or Aristotle knew twenty -two 
centuries ago. For he must have an extravagant esti- 
mate of the inherent capacities of the finite mind, who 
supposes that the rolling round of two millenniums, or 
of ten, would have witnessed in any one individual case, 
a more central, or a more defecated, development of the 
pure rationality of mere man than was witnessed in 
Aristotle. And he must have a very ardent belief in the 
omnipotence of the finite, who supposes, that, without 
that communication of truth and of spirit ; of light and 
of life ; which God in Christ has made to the race, ages 
upon ages of merely spontaneous and secular history 
would have produced a more beautiful development of 
the human imagination than appears in the Grecian Art 
and Literature, or a more profound development of the 
human reason than appears in the Grecian Philosophy 
and the Grecian Ethics. 

The Scriptures have, accordingly, been the source of 
religious knowledge and progress for the Christian, as 
antithetic to the secular, mind, and will continue to be, 
until they are superseded by some other and fuller reve- 
lation in another mode of being than that of earth. It 
has, consequently, been the aim and endeavor of the 
church in all ages, to be Scriptural ; to work itself into 
the very heart of the written revelation ; to stand upon 
the very same point of view with the few inspired minds, 



94 THE NATURE, AND INFLUENCE, OF 

and see objects precisely as they saw them. But this, 
though possible and a duty, is no easy task, as the whole 
history of Christian doctrines shows. Truth in the Scrip- 
tures is full and entire. The Scriptural idea is never 
defective, but contains all the elements. Hence its very 
perfection and completeness is an obstacle to its full 
apprehension. It is difficult for the human mind to take 
in the whole great thought. It is often exceedingly diffi- 
cult for the human mind oppressed, first, by the vastness 
and mystery of the revealed truth, and, secondly, by its 
own singular tendency to one-sided and imperfect per- 
ception, to gather the full idea from the artless and 
unsystematized contents of Scripture, and then state it 
in the imperfect language of man. The doctrine of the 
Trinity, for example, is fully revealed in the Bible. All 
the elements of that great mystery ; the whole truth res- 
pecting the real triune nature of God, may be found in 
that book. But the elements are uncombined and 
unexpanded, and hence one source of the heresies respect- 
ing this doctrine. Arius and Sabellius both appealed to 
Scripture. Neither of them took the position of the 
infidel. Each acknowledged the authority of the written 
word, and endeavored to support his position from it. — 
But in these instances the individual mind merely picked 
up Scriptural elements as they lie scattered upon the 
page and in the letter of Scripture, and, without com- 
bining them with others that lie just as plainly upon the 
very same pages, moulded them into a defective, and 
therefore erroneous, statement. Heresy is individual 
and not historic in its nature. 

Now it is the characteristic of the general mind of the 
church ; of the historic Christian mind ; that it reproduces 
in its intuition, and in its statement, the complex and 
complete Scriptural idea. So far as it has any intuition 



THE HISTORIC SPIRIT. 95 

at all, it sees all the sides ; so far as it makes any state- 
ment at all, it brings into it all the fundamentals. By 
this is not meant that even the mind of the church has 
perfected the expansion of Scripture elements and made 
the fullest possible statement of the doctrine of the 
Trinity. There may, possibly, be a further exhaustion 
of the contents of revelation in this direction. There 
may, possibly, be a statement of this doctrine that will 
be yet fuller ; still closer up to the Scriptural matter ; 
than that one which the church has generally accepted 
since the date of the Councils of Nice and Constanti- 
nople. But there will never be a form of statement that 
will flatly contradict this form, or that will add any new 
fundamentals to it. All that is new and different must 
be in the way of expansion and not of addition ; in the 
way of development and not of denial. A closer study 
of the teachings of Scripture, and a deeper reflection 
upon them, may carry the theological mind further along 
on the line, but will give it no diagonal or retrograde 
movement. 

Now is it not perfectly plain that the close and 
thorough study of this continuous and self-correcting 
endeavor of the Christian church to enucleate the real 
meaning of Scripture ; an endeavor which has been put 
forth by the wisest, the most reverent, and the holiest, 
minds in its history, tasking their own powers to the 
utmost, and invoking and receiving Divine illumination, 
during the whole of the process ; an endeavor which has 
to a great extent formed and fixed the religious experi- 
ence of ages and generations, by its results embodied in 
the creeds and symbols of the church : a series of mental 
constructions, which, even if we contemplate only their 
human characteristics, their scientific coherence and sys- 
tematic compactness, are more than worthy to be placed 



yo THE NATURE, AND INFLUENCE, OF 

side by side with the best dialectics of the secular mind 
is it not perfectly plain, we say, that the close and tho 
rough study of such a strenuous endeavor, as this has 
been, to reach the inmost heart and fibre of Scripture, 
will tend irresistibly to render the theologian Scriptural 
in head and in heart ? May we not expect that such a 
student will be intensely Scriptural ? Will not this dis- 
tinct and thorough knowledge of revelation be so wrought 
into his mental texture that he will see and judge of 
everything through this medium ? Will he not have so 
thought in that same range and region in which his 
inspired teachers thought, that doubt and perplexity in 
regard to Divine revelation would be nearly as impossible 
for him, as for Isaiah while under the Divine afflatus, or 
for Paul when in the third heavens ? To borrow an 
illustration from the kindred science of Law : if it is the 
effect of the continued and thoughtful study of Law 
Reports and Political Constitutions and Commentaries 
upon Political Constitutions ; a body of literature which, 
as it originates out of the organic idea of law, breathes 
the purest spirit of the legal reason ; if it is the effect of 
such study to render the individual mind legal and judi- 
cial in its tone and temper, must it not be the effect of 
the study of that body of symbolic literature which has 
come slowly but consecutively into existence through the 
endeavor of the theological mind to reach a perfect 
understanding of Scripture, to render the individual mind 
Scriptural in its tone and temper ? 

II. And this leads us to say, in the second place, thai 
a historic spirit in the theologian, induces a correct esti» 
mate of Creeds and Systematic Theology. 

One of the most interesting features in the present 
condition of the theological world is a revived interest in 
the department of church history. This interest has been 



THE HISTORIC SPIRIT. 97 

slowly increasing for the last half century, and promises 
to become a leading interest for some time to come. In 
Germany, in America, and in England, scholars and 
thinking men are turning their attention away, some- 
what, from the purely secular history of mankind, to that 
more solemn and momentous career which a part of the 
human family have been running for nearly six thousand 
years. They have become aware that the history of the 
church of God is a peculiar movement that has been 
silently going on in the heart of the race from the begin- 
ning of time, and which, while it has not by any means 
left the secular historic processes untouched and unaf- 
fected, has yet kept on in its own solitary and sublime 
line of direction. They are now disposed to look and 
see how and where 

the sacred river ran 
Through caverns measureless to man 
Down to the sunlit sea. 

But it would be an error to suppose that this interest 
has been awakened merely or mainly by the external his- 
tory of the Christian Church. " The battles, sieges, for- 
tunes it hath passed ; " its conflicts with persecuting Pa- 
ganism, Mohammedanism, and Romanism ; its influence 
upon art, upon literature and science, upon society and 
government ; these are not the charm which is now 
drawing as by a spell the best thinking of Christendom 
towards church history. It is not the secular and worldly 
elements in this history into which the mind of the time 
most desires to look. The great march of profane his- 
tory brings to view a pomp and prodigality of such ele- 
ments that has already dulled and satiated the tired sen- 
sibilities. Thinking minds now desire to look into the 
distinctively supernatural elements in this historic pro- 



98 THE NATURE, AND INFLUENCE, OF 

cess ; to see if it really has, as it claims to have, a direct 
connection with the Creator of the race and the Author 
of the human mind. It is for this reason that the revived 
interest in this department of knowledge has shown it- 
self most powerfully and influentially in investigating the 
origin and nature of the doctrines of the church, as they 
are found speculatively in creeds and symbols, and prac- 
tically in the Christian consciousness. The mind of 
Germany, for example, after ranging over the whole field 
of cultivated heathenism, and sounding the lowest depths 
of the finite reason, in a vain search for that absolute 
truth in which alone the human soul can rest, has be- 
taken itself to the domain of Christian revelation and 
Christian history. Its interest in Greek and Roman cul- 
ture, in Mediaeval Art, and in its own speculative sys- 
tems, has given way to a deeper interest in the Christian 
religion ; in some instances with a clear perception, in 
others with a dim intimation, that, if the truth which the 
human mind needs, is not to be found here, the last re- 
source has failed ; and that then 



The pillared firmament is rottenness 
And earth's base built on stubble. 



This revived interest in church history, therefore, is in 
reality a search after truth, rather than after a mere dra- 
matic scene or spectacle. The mind of the time is anx- 
ious to understand that revealed doctrinal system, which 
it now sees, has, from the beginning, been the " rock " on 
which the church of God has been founded, and the 
" quarry " out of which it has been built. Knowing this, 
it believes it will then have the key to the process. 
Knowing this, it believes it will know the whole secret ; 
the secret of that charmed life which has borne the church 



THE HISTORIC SPIRIT. 99 

of God through all the mutations and extinctions of sec- 
ular history, and that unearthly life which in all ages has 
secured to the believer a serene or an ecstatic passage 
into the unknown and dreadful future. 

Now this interest in a doctrinal system, which thus lies 
at the bottom of this general interest in church history, 
will be shared by the individual student. He, too, can- 
not stop with the scene, the spectacle, the drama. He, 
too, cannot stop with those characteristics which ecclesi- 
astical history has in common with secular, but will pass 
on to those which are distinctive and peculiar. For him, 
too, the history of a single mind, like that of Augustine 
or Anselm ; or of a single doctrine, like that of the 
Atonement or of the Trinity; will have a charm and 
fruitfulness not to be found in the entire rise of the 
worldly Papacy, or in centuries of merely external and 
earthly movement like the Crusades. The whole influ- 
ence of his studies in this direction will be spiritual and 
spiritualizing. 

But, without enlarging upon the general nature of the 
estimate which the historic spirit puts upon the internal 
as compared Math the external history of the church, let 
us notice two particulars which fall under this head. 

1. Notice, first, the interest awakened by historical 
studies in the creeds and symbols of the Christian church 
as containing the Philosophy of Christianity. 

We have spoken of the symbolic literature of the 
Christian church as a growth out of Scripture soil ; as a 
fruitage full of the flavor and juices of its germ. A 
Christian creed is not the product of the individual, or the 
general, human mind evolving out of itself those truths 
of natural reason and natural religion which are connate 
and inborn. It is not the self-development of the human 
mind, but the development of Scripture matter. The 



100 THE NATURE, AND INFLUENCE, OF 

Christian mind, as we have seen, is occupied, from age 
to age, with an endeavor to fathom the depths of Divine 
revelation ; to make the fullest possible expression and ex- 
pansion of all the truths that have been communicated 
from God to man. This endeavor necessarily assumes a 
scientific form. The practical explanation, illustration, and 
application, is going on continually in the popular repre- 
sentations of the pulpit and the sermon, but this cannot 
satisfy all the wants of the church. Simultaneously with 
this there is a constant effort to obtain a still more scien- 
tific apprehension of Scripture and make a still more full 
and self-consistent statement of its contents. The Chris- 
tian mind, as well as the secular, is scientific ; has a scien- 
tific feeling, and scientific wants. A creed is as necessary 
to a theologian, as a philosophical system is to the secu- 
lar student. 

It follows, therefore, that the philosophy, by which is 
meant the rationality, of the Christian religion, is to be 
found in these creeds and symbols. For reasonableness 
and self-consistence are qualities not to be carried into 
Christianity from without, as if they were not to be 
found in it, but to be brought out from within, because 
they belong to its intrinsic nature. The philosophy, that 
is, the rational necessity, of the Christian religion, is not 
an importation but an evolution. This religion is to be 
taken just as it is given in the Scriptures ; just as it re- 
appears in the close and systematic statement of the 
creeds ; and its intrinsic truth and reasonableness evinced 
by what it furnishes itself. For whoever shows the in- 
ward necessity and reasonableness of a Doctrine of 
Christianity does by the very act and fact show the har- 
mony of philosophy and religion. Whoever takes a doc- 
trine of Christianity and without anxiously troubling him- 
self with the tenets of this or that particular philosophical 



THE HISTORIC SPIRIT. 101 

system, derives out of the very elements of the doctrine 
and the very terms of the statement itself, a reasonableness 
that irresistibly commends itself to the spontaneous rea- 
son and instinctive judgment of universal man, by this 
very process demonstrates the inward, central, unity of 
faith and reason. Instead, therefore, of setting the two 
sciences over against each other and endeavoring, by 
modifications upon one or both sides, to bring about the 
adjustment, the theologian should take the Christian sys- 
tem precisely as it is given in Scripture, in all its com- 
prehension, depth, and strictness, and without being 
diverted by any side references to particular philosophi- 
cal schools, simply exhibit the intrinsic truthfulness, ra- 
tionality, and necessity, of the system. In this way he 
establishes the position, that philosophy and revelation 
are harmonious, in a manner that admits of no contra- 
diction. The greater necessarily includes the less. When 
the theologian has demonstrated the inward necessity of 
Christianity, out of its own self-sufficient and indepen- 
dent rationality, his demonstration is perfect. For rea- 
son cannot be contrary to reason. A rational necessity 
anywhere, is a philosophical necessity everywhere. 

The correctness of this method of finding and estab- 
lishing the rationality of Christianity, is beginning to be 
acknowledged in that country where the conflict between 
reason and revelation has been hottest. It begins to be 
Been that the harmony between philosophy and Chris- 
tianity is not to be brought about, by first assuming that 
the infallibility is on the side of the human reason ; and 
that, too, as it appears in a single and particular philo- 
sophical system ; and then insisting that all the adjust- 
ment, conformity, and coalescence, shall be on the side 
of the Divine revelation. It begins to be seen that phi- 
losophy is in realitv an abstract and universal term 



102 THE NATURE, AND >^ FLfffcNCr., OY 

which, by its very etymology, denotes, not that it has 
already attained and now possesses the truth, but that it 
is seeking for it* It begins to be seen that both Aris- 
totle and Bacon were right in calling it an organon ; an 
instrument for getting at the truth, and neither the truth 
itself nor even its containing source.f It begins to be 
seen that philosophy is only another term for rationality, 
and that to exhibit the philosophy of a department, like 
religion, or history, or philosophy, or natural science, is 
simply to exhibit the real and reasonable truth that is in 
it. It begins to be seen, consequently, that each branch 
of knowledge, each subject of investigation, must be treat- 
ed genetically in order to be treated philosophically ; 
must be allowed to furnish its own matter, make its own 
statements, out of which, and not out of what may be 
carried over into it from some other quarter, its accept- 
ance or its rejection by the human mind should be de- 
termined. 

We are aware that the barrenness of those later systems 
of speculative philosophy, with which the German mind 
has been so intensely busied for the last fifty years, has 
been one great means of bringing it back to this moderate 
and true estimate of the nature and functions of philoso- 
phy ; but this revived interest in the history of Christianity 

* The love of wisdom, implies a present seeking for it, 

t Kant, says William Humboldt, did not so much teach philosophy, as how 
to philosophize. Correspondence with Schiller : Vorerinverung. 

It is the greatest merit of Schleiermacher that he saw and asserted the 
independent and self-subsistent position of Christian theology in relation to 
philosophical systems. If he had sought the sources of this theology more 
in the objective revelation and less in the subjective Christian conscious- 
ness, he would have accomplished more than he has towards evincing the 
harmony of* the two sciences, while his own system would have had more 
agreement than it now has with the general theology of the Christian 
thurch. 



THE HISTORIC SPIRIT. 103 

and profounder study of its symbols, has also contribut- 
ed, greatly, to produce this disposition to let revealed 
religion stand or fall upon its own merits. For this 
study has disclosed the fact that it has philosophical and 
scientific merits of its own ; that, in the unsystematized 
statements and simple but prolific teachings of the Bible, 
there lies the substance of a system deeper and wider and 
loftier than the whole department of philosophy, and 
that this substance has actually been expanded and com 
bined by the historic mind of the church into a series of 
doctrines respecting the nature of God and man and the 
universe with their mutual relations, with which the cor- 
responding statements upon the same subjects, of the 
Greek Theism or the German Pantheism cannot com- 
pare for a moment. Probably nothing has done more to 
exhibit the Christian system in its true nature and pro- 
portions, and thereby to render it grand and venerable to 
the modern scientific mind, than this history of its origin 
and formation. As the scientific man studies the arti- 
cles of a creed, which one of the most naturally scientific 
minds of the race, aided by the wisdom of predecessors 
and contemporaries, derived from the written revelation ; 
as the rigorous and dialectic man follows Athanasius 
down into those depths of the Divine nature, which yawn 
like a gulf of darkness before the unaided human mind ; 
if he finds nothing to love and adore, he finds something 
to respect ; if he finds no food for his affections, he finds 
some matter for his thoughts. Here, too, is science. 
Here, too, is the profound intuition expressed in the 
clear but inadequate conception ; the most thorough 
unions, guarded against the slightest confusions ; analy- 
sis and synthesis ; opposite conceptions reconciled in 
their higher and original unities ; in short, all the forms 
of science, filled up in this instance as in no other, with 



104 THE NATURE, AND INFLUENCE, OF 

the truth of eternal necessary fact and eternal necessary 
being. 

And this same kind of influence, only in much greater 
degree, is exerted by historical studies upon the mind of 
the theologian. As he becomes better acquainted with 
the history of Christian doctrines, he becomes more dis- 
posed to find his philosophy of human nature and of the 
Divine nature in them, rather than in human systems. 
As he studies the development of that great doctrine, the 
doctrine of sin, he becomes convinced, if he was not be- 
fore, that the powers, and capacities, and possible des 
tiny, of the human soul, have received their most pro- 
found examination within the sphere of Christian theol- 
ogy. As he studies the history of that other great doc- 
trine, the doctrine of the atonement, he sees plainly that 
the ideas of law and justice and government, of guilt and 
punishment and expiation ; ideas that are the life and 
lifeblood of the Aristotelian ethics, the best and purest 
ethical system which the human reason was able to con- 
struct ; that these great parent ideas show truest, fullest, 
largest, and clearest, by far, within the consciousness of 
the Christian mind. 

What surer method, therefore, of making his mind 
grow into the philosophy of Christianity can the theolo- 
gian employ, than the historic method ? In what better 
way can he arm himself for the contest with ignorant or 
with cultivated scepticism, than by getting possession, 
through the reproductive study of dogmatic history, of 
the exact contents of Scripture as expanded and system- 
atized by the consentaneous and connected studies of 
the Fathers, the Reformers, and the Divines, the Coun- 
cils, the Synods, and the Assemblies, of the Church uni- 
versal ? 

2. Secondly, notice the interest awakened by histori- 



THE HISTORIC SPIRIT. 105 

cal studies in the creeds and symbols of the Christian 
church as marks of development and progress in theol- 
ogy. 

If we have truly enunciated the idea of history, in the 
first part of this discourse, it follows that all genuine de- 
velopment is a historical development, and all true pro- 
gress is a historical progress. For the true history of 
anything is the account of its development according to 
its true idea and necessary law. The history of a na- 
tural object, like a crystal, for example, is the account of 
its rigorously geometric collection and upbuilding about 
a nucleus. Crystallization is a necessary process, for it is 
a petrified geometry. The history of a tree is the ac- 
count of its spontaneous and inevitable evolution out of 
a germ. The process itself, in both of these instances, is 
predetermined and fixed. The account of the process, 
therefore, if it is exactly conformed to the actual matter 
of fact, has a fixed and predetermined character also. 
For, if nature herself goes forward in a straight and unde- 
viating line, the history of nature must follow on after, 
and tread in her very and exactest footsteps. Hence, 
true legitimate history, of any kind, is neither arbitrary nor 
capricious. It corresponds to real fact, and real fact is 
the process of real nature. The matter and method of 
nature, therefore, dictate the matter and method of the 
history of nature. 

And the same holds true, when we pass from history 
in the sphere of nature, to history in the realm of mind 
and spirit. The matter and method of a spiritual idea 
dictate the matter and method of the unfolding, and, con- 
sequently, of the history, of that idea. In the case now 
under discussion, the real nature and inward structure of 
Christianity determine what does, and what does not 
belong to its true historical development. The ti ue his 



106 THE NATURE, AND INFLUENCE. OF 

tory of Christianity, therefore, is the history of true Chris 
tianity.* The church historian is, indeed, obliged to take 
into account the deviations from the true Scriptural idea, 
because, unlike the naturalist, he is within the sphere of 
freedom, and of false development, and because redemp- 
tion itself is a mixed process of dying to sin and living 
to righteousness. But he notices the deviations not for 
the purpose, it should be carefully observed, of letting 
them -iake up part of the true and normal history ol 
Scriptural Christianity. The church historian is obliged 
to watch the rise and growth of heresies, not surely be- 
cause they constitute an integrant part of the legitimate 
development and true history of Scripture truth. The 
account of a heresy has only a negative historical value. 
All the positive and genuine history of Christian doc- 
trine is to be made up out of that correct apprehension 
and unfolding whicli Scripture has received from the 
Catholic as antithetic to the Heretical mind. Tempo- 
rary departures from the real nature of Scripture truth, 
and deductions from it that are illegitimate, may pos- 
sibly have contributed to a return to a deeper and clearer 
knowledge of revelation on the part of some few minds, 
and have unquestionably elicited a more full and com- 
prehensive statement and defence of Christianity on the 
part of others, and in this way the heresies that appear 
all along the line of church history, throw light upon the 

* The reader will notice the value of the qualifying adjective here. The 
term history is used in two senses ; a general and a special. In the former 
sense, it denotes all that occurred, right or wrong, normal or abnormal. In 
the latter sense, in which alone it is employed above, it denotes only that 
which ought to occur. It is the proper function of the philosophic historian 
of the Christian religion and church, to reduce the general to the special 
history, by throwing out of the former all that is miscellaneous and hetero- 
geneous, and retaining only that which accords with the supernatural law 
and principle that constitutes the basis of sacred, as distinguished from see* 
lar, history. 



THE HISTORIC SPIRIT. 107 

rue course of doctrinal development and help to bring 
out the true history. But these heretical processes them- 
selves, cannot be regarded as integrant and necessary 
parts of the great historic process, any more than the dis- 
eases of the human body can be regarded, equally with 
the healthy processes of growth, as the normal develop- 
ment of the organism. Nosology is not a chapter in 
physiology. 

It follows, consequently, that the true and proper his- 
tory of Christianity will exhibit a true and proper theo- 
logical progress. li will show that the Scripture germ 
implanted by God, has been slowly but correctly unfold- 
ing in the doctrine and science of the church. We can- 
not grant that historical theology is anti-scriptural and 
radically wrong ; that the Bible has had no true and le- 
gitimate apprehension in the ages and generations of 
believers. There has been, notwithstanding all the at- 
tacks of infidelity from without, and controversies from 
within, a substantial agreement, and a steady advance, 
in understanding the written revelation. This is very 
plainly to be seen in the history of doctrines, and from this 
we may draw the most forcible proofs and illustrations. 
Let any one compare the first with the latest Christian 
creed, and he will see the development which the Scripture 
mustard-seed has undergone. Let any one place the 
Apostles' creed beside that of the Westminster Assem- 
bly, and see what a vast expansion of revealed truth has 
taken place. The former was all that the mind of the 
church in that age of infancy was able to eliminate and 
systematize out of the Scriptures ; and this simple state- 
ment was sufficient to satisfy the imperfectly developed 
scientific wants of the early church. The latter creed 
was what the mind of the church was able to construct out 
of the elements of the very same written revelation, afte* 



108 



fifteen hundred years of study and reflection upon them. 
The " words," the doctrinal elements, of Scripture, are 
" spirit and life," and hence, like all spirit and all life, are 
capable of expansion. Upon them the historic Christian 
mind, age after age, has expended its best reflection, and 
now the result is an enlarged and systematized statement 
such as the early church could not have made, and did 
not need. 

Compare, again, the statement of the doctrine of the 
Trinity in the Apostles' creed with that in the Nicene 
creed. The erroneous and defective statements of Arius 
compelled the orthodox mind to a more profound reflec- 
tion upon the matter of Scripture, and the result was a 
creed in which the implication and potentiality of revela- 
tion was so far explicated and evolved as to present a 
distinct and unequivocal denial of the doctrine of a 
created Son of God. But, besides this negative value, 
this systematic construction of the Scripture doctrine of 
the Trinity has a great positive worth. It opens before 
the human mind the great abyss of the Divine nature ; 
and, though it cannot impart to the finite intelligence 
that absolutely full and perfect knowledge of the God- 
head which only God himself can have, it yet furnishes 
a form of apprehension which accords with the real 
nature of God, and will, therefore, preserve the mind that 
accepts it from both the Dualistic and the Pantheistic 
ideas of the Supreme Being. Abstruse and dialectic as 
that creed has appeared to some minds and some ages 
in the Christian church; little connection as it has 
seemed to them to have with so practical a matter as 
vital religion ; it would not be difficult to show that those 
councils at Nice and Constantinople, did a work in the 
years 325 and 381, of which the church universal will 
feel the salutary effects to the end of time, both in prac^i 



THE HISTORIC SPIRIT. 109 

cal and scientific respects. For, if all right religious 
feeling towards Jesus Christ is grounded in the up assail- 
able conviction that he is truly and verily God; " begot- 
ten, not made, being of one substance with the Father ; " 
then this creed laid down the systematic basis of all the 
true worship and acceptable adoration which the church 
universal have paid to the Redeemer of the world.* And 
if a correct metaphysical conception of the Divine Being 
is necessary in order to all right philosophizing upon 
God and the universe, then this Christian doctrine of the 
Trinity is the only statement that is adequate to the 
wants of science, and the only one that can keep the 
philosophic mind from the Pantheistic and Dualistic 
deviation to which, when left to itself, it is so liable. 

The importance of historical studies and the historic 
spirit in an age of the world that more than any other 
suffers from false notions regarding the nature of pro- 

* By this is not meant that there can be no true worship until a creed 
has been systematically formed and laid down, but that all true worship is 
grounded in a practical belief which, when examined, is found to harmon- 
ize exactly with the speculative results reached by the Christian Scientific 
mind. So far as the great body of believers is concerned, their case is like 
that of Hilary of Poictiers, who has left one of the best of the patristic 
treatises upon the Trinity, but who, in his retired bishopric in Gaul, did 
not hear of the Nicene creed until many years after its origin. He " found 
in it that very same doctrine of the unity of essence in the Father and the 
Son, which he had, before this, ascertained to be the true doctrine, from tho 
study of the New Testament, and had received into his Christian experi- 
ence, without being aware that the faith which he bore in his heart, had 
been laid down in the form of a creed." — Torrey's Neander, ii. 396. 

Consonant with this, Hagenbach, after speaking of the highly scientific 
character of the Symbolum Quicumque, its endeavor, namely, to express the 
ineffable by its series of affirmations and guarding negations, adds, that 
" such formulae nevertheless have their edifying no less than their scientific 
side, inasmuch as they testify to the struggle of the Christian mind after a 
satisfactory expression of that which has its full truth only in the depths 
of the believing heart and character." — Dogmengeschichte, third edition, 
p 249, note. 



110 THE NATURE, AND INFLUENCE, OF 

gress and development, cannot be exaggerated. But h« 
who is able to see in the creeds and symbols of the 
Christian church so many steps of real progress ; he who 
knows that outside of that line of symbolic literature 
there is nothing but deviation from the real matter of 
Scripture, will not be likely to be carried away with the 
notion of a sudden and great improvement upon all that 
has hitherto been accomplished in the department of 
theology. He will know that, as all the past develop- 
ment has been historic ; restatement shooting out of 
prestatement ; the fuller creed bursting out of the nar- 
rower ; the expanded treatise swelling forth growth-like 
from the more slender; so all the present and future 
development in theology must be historic also. He will 
see, especially, that elements that have already been 
examined and rejected by the Christian mind, as unscrip- 
tural and foreign, can never again be rightfully intro- 
duced into creeds and symbols ; that history cannot undo 
history ; that the progress of the present and the future 
must be homogeneous and kindred with the progress of 
the past. 

III. In the third place, a historic spirit in the theolo- 
gian protects him from false notions respecting the 
nature of the visible church, and from a false church 
feeling. 

We can devote but a moment to this branch of the 
discussion, unusually important just at this time. 

We have seen that the most important part of the his- 
tory of the church is its inward history. We have found 
that the external history of Christianity derives all its 
interest for a thoughtful mind from its connection with 
that dispensation of truth and of spirit which lies beneath 
it as its animating soul. The whole influence, conse- 
quently, of genuine and comprehensive historical study 



THE HISTORIC SPIRIT. Ill 

Is to magnify the substance and subordinate the form 
to exalt truth, doctrine, and life, over rites, ceremonies, 
and polities. 

It is undoubtedly true, that the study of ecclesiastical 
history, in some minds, and in some branches of the 
church, has strengthened a strong formalizing tendency, 
and promoted ecclesiasticism. The Papacy has from 
time immemorial appealed to tradition ; and those por- 
tions of the Protestant church which have been least suc- 
cessful in freeing themselves from the materialism of the 
Papacy, have said much about the past history of the 
church. Hence, in some quarters in the Protestant 
church, there are, and always have been, apprehensions 
lest history should interfere with the great right of pri- 
vate judgment, and put a stop to all legitimate progress. 

But it only needs a comprehensive idea of the nature 
of history to allay these apprehensions. It only needs to 
be remembered that the history of Christianity is some- 
thing more than the history of the Nicene period or of 
the Scholastic age. It only needs to be recollected that 
the history of Christianity denotes a course of develop- 
ment from the beginning of the world down to the 
present moment ; that it includes the whole of that 
Divine economy which began with the first promise, and 
which manifested itself first in the Patriarchal, next in 
the Jewish, and finally in the Christian, church.* The 

* Probably the most serious defect in the construction of the history of 
Christianity by the school of Schleiermacher, springs from regarding the 
incarnation as the beginning of church history. Even if this is not always 
formally said, as it sometimes is, the notion itself moulds and forms the 
whole account. The golden position of Augustine, Novum Testamentum in 
Vetere latet, Veins in Novo patet, is forgotten, and the Jewish religion, as it 
came from God, is confounded with that corruption of it which we find in 
t**e days of our Saviour, but against which the evangelical prophet Isaiah 
•nveighs as earnestly as the evangelical apostle Paul. " He is not a Jew 



112 THE NATURE, AND INFLUENCE, OF 

influence of the study of this ivhole great process, espe- 
cially if the eye is kept fastened upon the spiritual sub- 
stance of it, is anything but formalizing and sectarian. — 
If, therefore, a papistic and anti-catholic temper has 
ever shown itself in connection with the study of ecclesi- 
astical history, it was because the inward history was 
neglected, and even the external history was studied in 
sections only. He who selects a particular period merely, 
and neglects all that has preceded and all that has fol- 
lowed, will be liable to a sectarian view of the nature 
and history of the church of God. He who reproduces 
within his mind the views and feelings of a single age 
merely, will be individual and bigoted in his temper. — 
He who confines his studies, for example, as so many 

which is one outwardly, neither is that circumcision which is outward in 
the flesh." Judaism is not Phariseeism. There is, therefore, no inward 
and essential difference between true Judaism and true Christianity. The 
former looked forward and the latter looks backward to the same central 
Person and the same central Cross. The manifested Jehovah of the Old 
Testament was the incarnate Word of the New. " The religion," says 
Edwards, " that the church of God has professed from the first founding of 
the church after the fall to this time, has always been the same. Though 
the dispensations have been altered, yet the religion which the church has 
professed, has always, as to its essentials, been the same. The church of 
God, from the beginning, has been one society. The Christian church 
which has been since Christ's ascension, is manifestly the same society 
continued, with the church that was before Christ came. The Christian 
church is grafted on their root ; they are built upon the same foundation. — 
The revelation upon which both have depended, is essentially the same ; 
for, as the Christian church is built on the Holy Scriptures, so was the 
Jewish church, though now the Scriptures be enlarged by the addition of 
the New Testament ; but still it is essentially the same revelation with that 
which was given in the Old Testament, only the subjects of Divine revela- 
tion are now more clearly recorded in the New Testament than they were 
in the Old. But the sum and substance of both the Old Testament and 
the New, is Christ and His redemption. The church of God has always 
been on the foundation of Divine revelation, and always on those revela- 
tions that were essentially the same, and which were summarily compre- 
hended in the Holy Scriptures." — Edwards's Work of Redemption, i. 473 



THE HISTORIC SPIRIT. 113 

have done, and are doing, to that period from Constan- 
tine to Hildebrand, which witnessed the rise and forma- 
tion of the Papacy ; and, especially, he, who in this 
period studies merely the archaeology and the polity, 
without the doctrines, the morality, and the life ; he, 
who confines himself to those tracts of Augustine which 
emphasize the idea of the church in opposition to ancient 
radicals and disorganizers, but studiously avoids those 
other and greater and more elaborate treatises of this 
earnest spiritualist, which thunder the idea of the truth, 
in opposition to all heretics and all formalists ; he, in 
short, who goes to the study of ecclesiastical history with 
a predetermined purpose, and carries into it an antece- 
dent interpreting idea, derived from his denomination, 
and not from Scripture, will undoubtedly become more 
and more Romish and less and less historic. 

Such a disposition as this, is directly crossed and mor- 
tified by a comprehensive and philosophic conception of 
history. Especially will the history of doctrines destroy 
the belief in the infallibility, or paramount authority, of 
any particular portion of the church universal. The eye 
is now turned away from those external and imposing 
features of the history which have such a natural effect 
to carnalize the mind, to those simpler truths and interior 
living principles, which have a natural effect to spiritual- 
ize it. An interest in the theology of the church is very 
different from an interest in the polity of the church. It 
is a fact that as the one rises, the other declines ; and 
there would be no surer method of destroying the formal- 
ism that exists in some portions of the church, than to 
compel their clergy to the continuous and close study of 
the entire history of Christian doctrines. 

IV. In the fourth place, a historic spirit in theologians 



114 THE NATURE, AND INFLUENCE, OF 

promotes a profound and genial agreement on essential 
points, and a genial disagreement on non-essentials. 

It is plain that the study of church history tends to 
establish and to magnify the distinction between real 
orthodoxy and real heterodoxy. History is discriminating 
and cannot be made to mingle the immiscible. In 
regard, therefore, to the great main currents of truth and 
of error, the historic mind is clear in its insight and 
decided in its opinions. It knows that the Christian 
religion has been both truly and falsely apprehended by 
the human mind, and that, consequently, two lines of 
belief can be traced down the ages and generations ; that 
in only one of these two, is Scriptural Christianity to be 
found. 

But its wide and catholic survey, also enables the his- 
toric mind to see as the un historic mind cannot, that the 
line of orthodoxy is not a mathematical line. It has 
some breadth. It is a path, upon which the church can 
travel, and not merely a direction in which it can look. 
It is a high and royal road, where Christian men may go 
abreast ; may pass each other, and carry on the practical 
business of a Christian life ; and not a mere hair-line 
down which nought can go but the one-eyed sighting of 
either speculative or provincial bigotry. 

Hence historical studies banish both provincialism and 
bigotry from a theological system, and imbue it with 
that practical and catholic spirit which renders it interest- 
ing and influential through the whole church and world. 
A system of theology may be true and yet not contain 
the whole truth. It may have seized upon some funda- 
mental positions, or cardinal doctrines, with a too violent 
energy, and have given them an exorbitant expansion, to 
the neglect of other equally fundamental truths. In this 
case, historical knowledge is one of the best correctives 



THE HISTORIC SPIRIT. 115 

A wider knowledge of the course of theological specula- 
tion ; a more profound acquaintance with the origin and 
formation of the leading systems of the church universal; 
tends to produce that equilibrium of the parts and that 
comprehensiveness of the whole, which are so apt to be 
lacking in a provincial creed or system. 

A similar liberalizing influence is exerted by the study 
of church history upon the theologian himself. He sees 
that men on the same side of the line which divides real 
orthodoxy from real heterodoxy, have differed from each 
other, and sometimes upon very important, though never 
upon vital, points. The history of Christian doctrine 
compels him to acknowledge that there is a theological 
space, within which it is safe for the theological scientific 
mind to expatiate and career ; that this is a liberty con- 
ceded to the theologian by the unsystematized form in 
which the written revelation has been given to man, 
and a liberty, too, which, when it is not abused, greatly 
promotes that clearer and fuller understanding of the 
Scriptures, which we have seen the historic Christian 
mind is continually striving after. 

But this scientific liberality among theologians leads 
directly to a more profound and genial agreement among 
them upon all practical and essential points. The liber- 
ality of the historic mind is very far removed from that 
mere indifferentism which sometimes usurps this name 
There is a truth for which the disagreeing, and perhaps* 
(owing to imperfectly sanctified hearts) the bitterly disa- 
greeing, theologians would both be tied to one stake and 
be burnt with one fire. There is a vital and necessary 
doctrine for which, if it were assailed by a third party, a 
bitter unevangelic enemy, both of the contending ortho- 
dox divines would fight under one and the same shield. 
That truth which history shows has been the life of the 



116 THE NATURE, AND INFLUENCE, OF 

church and without which it must die ; that historic 
truth, which is the heritage and the joy of the whole 
family in heaven and on earth, is dear to both hearts 
alike. 

But what tends to make differing theologians agree, 
profoundly and thoroughly, upon essential points, also 
tends to make them differ generously and genially upon 
non-essentials. Those who know that, after all, they are 
one, in fundamental character, and in fundamental belief; 
that, after all their disputing, they have but one Lord, one 
faith and one baptism ; find it more difficult to maintain 
a bitter tone and to employ an exasperated accent toward 
each other. The common Christian consciousness wells 
up from the lower depths of the soul, and, as in those deep 
inland lakes which are fed from subterranean fountains, 
the sweet waters neutralize and change those bitter or 
brackish surface currents that have in them the taint of 
the shores ; perhaps the washings of civilization. 

While, therefore, a wide acquaintance with the varie- 
ties of statement which appear in scientific orthodoxy, 
does not in the least render the mind indifferent to that 
essential truth which every man must believe or be lost 
eternally, it at the same time induces a generous and 
genial temper among differing theologians. The contro- 
versies of the Christian church have unquestionably been 
a benefit to systematic theology, and that mind must 
have a very meagre idea of the comprehensiveness and 
pregnancy of Divine revelation, who supposes that the 
Christian mind could have derived out of it that great 
system of doctrinal knowledge which is to outlive all the 
constructions of the philosophic mind, without any sharp 
controversy, or keen examination among theologians. 
That structure did not and could not rise like Thebes, at 
the mellifluous sound of Amphion's lute ; it did not real 



THE HISTORIC SPIRIT. 117 

itself up like the Jewish temple without sound of ham- 
mer, or axe, or any tool of iron. Slowly, and with diffi- 
culty, was it upreared, by hard toil, amid opposition from 
foes without and foes within, and through much earnest 
mental conflict. And so will it continue to be reared and 
beautified in the ages that are to come. We cannot alter 
this course of things so long as the truth is infinite, and 
the mind is finite and sees through a glass darkly. 

What is needed, therefore, is a sweet and generous 
temper in all parties as the work goes on. The theolo- 
gian needs that great ability : the ability to differ genially. 
It has been the misery and the disgrace of the church, that 
too many theologians who have held the truth, and have 
held it, too, in its best forms, have held it, like the hea- 
then, in unrighteousness ; have held it in narrowness and 
bigotry. They have differed in a hard, dry, un genial 
•Way. They have forgotten that the rich man can afford 
to be liberal ; that the strong man need not be constantly 
anxious ; that a scientific and rigorous orthodoxy should 
ever look out of a beaming, and not a sullen, eye. 

Let us be thankful that some ages in the history of the 
church furnish examples that cheer and instruct. Look 
back at that most interesting period, the period of the 
Reformation, and contemplate the profound agreement 
upon essentials and the genial disagreement upon non- 
essentials, that prevailed among the leaders then. Mar- 
tin Luther and John Calvin were two theologians who 
differed as greatly in mental structure, and in their spon- 
taneous mode of contemplating and constructing doc- 
trines, as is possible for two minds upon the same side 
of the great controversy between orthodoxy and heresy. 
No man will say that the differences between Lutheran- 
ism and Calvinism are minor or unimportant. Probably 
any one would say that, if those two men were able to 



IIS THE NATURE, AND INFLUENCE, OF 

feel the common Christian fellowship ; to enjoy the com 
munion of saints ; and to realize with tenderness their 
common relationship to the Head of the church ; there is 
no reason why all men who are properly within the pale 
of orthodoxy should not do the same. 

Turn now to the letters of both of these men ; written 
in the midst of that controversy which was going on be- 
tween the two portions of the Reformed, and which re- 
sulted, not, however, through the desire or the influence 
of these two great men, but through the bitterness of 
their adherents, in their division into two distinct church- 
es ; and witness the common genial feeling that pre- 
vailed. Hear Luther in his letter to Bucer sending his 
cordial greeting to Calvin, whose books he has read with 
singular pleasure : cum singulari voluptate. Hear Calvin 
declaring his willing and glad readiness to subscribe to 
the Augsburg Confession, interpreting it upon the sacra-, 
mental question as the Lutherans themselves author- 
ized him to do.* Above all, turn to that burst, from Cal- 
vin, of affectionate feeling towards Melanchthon, which 
gives itself vent in the midst of one of his stern contro- 
versial tracts, like the music of flutes silencing for a mo- 
ment the clang of war-cymbals and the blare of the trum- 
pet : " O Philip Melanchthon, to thee I address myself, 
to thee who art now living in the presence of God with 

* Henry's Life of Calvin, II. pp. 96, 99. It is interesting and instructive 
to witness the liberal feeling of the scientific and rigorously orthodox Atha- 
nasius towards the Semiarians themselves, whose statement of the doc- 
trine of the Trinity he regarded to be inadequate. See the quotation from 
Athanashs de Synodis, § 41, in Gieseler, Chap. II. § 83, and the reference to 
Hilarius de Synodis, § 76. Says Augustine: "they who do not pertina- 
ciously defend their opinion, false and perverse though it be, especially 
when it does not spring from the audacity of their own presumption, while 
they seek the truth with cautious solicitude, and are prepared to correct 
themselves when they have found it, are by no means to be ranked among 
heretics." — Epistle 43. Newman's Library Version. 



THE HISTORIC SPIRIT. 119 

Jesus Christ, and there awaitest us, till death shall unite 
us in the enjoyment of Divine peace. A hundred times 
hast thou said to me, when weary with so much labor 
and oppressed with so many burdens, thou laidst thy 
head upon my breast, * God grant, God grant, that I 
may now die!'"* 

The theology of Richard Baxter differs from the theol- 
ogy of John Owen by some important modifications, and 
each of these two types of Calvinism will probably per- 
petuate itself in the church to the end of time ; but the 
confidence which both of these great men cherished to- 
wards each other, should go along down with these sys- 
tems through the ages and generations of time. 

But what surer method can be employed to produce 
and perpetuate this catholic and liberal feeling among 
the various types and schools of orthodox theology, than 
to impart to all of them the broad views of history ? 
And what surer method than this can be taken to dimin- 
ish the number and bring about more unity of opinion 
in the department of systematic theology ? For it is one 
great effect of history to coalesce and harmonize. It intro- 
duces mutual modifications, by showing opponents that 
their predecessors were nearer together than they them- 
selves are, by tracing the now widely separated opinions 
back to that point of departure where they were once 
very near together ; and, above all, by causing all parties 
to remember, what all are so liable to forget in the heat 
of controversy, that all forms of orthodoxy took their first 
origin in the Scriptures, and that, therefore, all theologi- 
cal controversy should be carried on with a constant 
reference to this one infallible standard, which can teach 
but one infallible system. 

* Henry's Life of Calvin, I. 239. . 



120 NATURE, AND INFLUENCE, OF THE HISTORIC SPIRIT. 

I have thus considered the nature of the historic spirit 
and its influence both upon the secular and theological 
mind, in order to indicate my own deep sense of the im- 
portance of the department in which I have been called 
to give instruction by the guardians of this Institution. 
The first instinctive feelings would have shrunk from the 
weight of the great burden imposed, and the extent of 
the very great field opened ; though in an institution 
where the pleasant years of professional study w^ere all 
spent ; though in an ancient institution, made illustrious 
and influential, through the land and the world, by the 
labors Of the venerated dead and the honored living. 
But it does not become the individual to yield to his 
individuality. The stream of Divine Providence, so sig- 
nally conspicuous in the life of the church, and of its 
members, is the stream upon which the diffident as well as 
tie confident must alike cast themselves. And he who 
enters upon a new course of labor for the church of 
God, with just views of the greatness and glory of the 
kingdom and of the comparative unimportance of any 
individual member, will be most likely to perform a w T ork 
that will best harmonize with the development and pro- 
gress of the great whole. 



THE IDEA OF EVOLUTION DEFINED, AND 
APPLIED TO HISTORY. 



§ 1. The abstract idka of Evolution and of History. 

In order to the successful investigation of any subject, 
it is necessary, first of all, to form a comprehensive and 
clear conception of its essential nature. Without such an 
antecedent general apprehension, the mind is at a loss 
where to begin, and which way to proceed. The true 
idea of any object, is a species of preparatory knowledge 
which throws light over the whole field of inquiry, and 
introduces an orderly method into the whole course of 
examination. It is the clue which leads through the laby- 
rinth ; the key to the problem to be solved. 

It may appear strange and irrational, at first glance, to 
require a knowledge of the intrinsic nature of that which 
is to be examined, in order that it may be examined, and 
before the examination, At first sight, it may seem as if 
this perception of the true idea of a thing, should be the 
result, and not the antecedent, of inquiry, and that nothing 
of an a priori nature should be permitted to enter into 
the investigations of the human mind in any department 
of knowledge. To require in the outset a comprehensive 
idea of History, for example, and then to use this as an 
instrument of investigation, seems to invert the true order 



122 THE IDEA OF EVOLUTION DEFINED, 

of things, and to convert ignorance into knowledge by 
some shorter method than that of study and reflection. 
But what is the matter of fact '? Does the scientific mind 
start off: upon its inquiries in every direction, without any 
preconceived ideas as to where it is going, and what it 
expects to find ? Is the human understanding such a tab- 
ula rasa, that it contributes nothing of its own towards 
the discovery of truth, but, like the mirror, servilely 
reflects all that is brought before it, without regard to 
deflections and distortions ? We have only to watch the 
movements of our minds to find that we carry with us 
into every field of investigation an antecedent idea, which 
gives more or less direction to our studies, and goes far to 
determine the result to which we come. We are not now 
concerned with the reasonableness or unreasonableness of 
this fact ; we are now only alluding to it as an actual mat- 
ter of fact which appears in the history of every studious 
and reflecting mind. Even if we deem it to be irrational 
and groundless, and for this reason endeavor to do away 
with it in our studies, we find it to be impossible. If we 
begin the study of Philosophy, it is with a general con- 
ception of its nature ; and one that is continually reap- 
pearing in our philosophizing. If we commence the 
examination of Christianity itself, we find that we already 
have an idea of its distinctive character as a religion, 
which exerts a very great influence upon our inquiry into' 
its constituent elements, and particularly upon our con- 
struction of its doctrines. This idea contains such pre- 
judgments as, that Christianity is a supernatural religion ; 
that its author is divine / that its truths are mysterious, 
i. e., are infinite, and therefore cannot be exhausted by the 
finite intelligence. These judgments are analytic and a 
priori / they flow from the nature of the case. For if 
Christianity is a religion differing in kind from all natural 



AND APPLIED TO HISTORY. 123 

religions, then the above elements are necessarily involved 
in the conception and theory of it. The demand there- 
fore so constantly made by the rationalist of every cen- 
tury, that the mind be entirely vacant of a priori ideas 
and initiating preconceptions; in his phraseology, free 
from " prej udices " ; in order that it may make a truly 
scientific examination, is a demand that cannot be com- 
plied with, even if there were a disposition to do so on 
the part of the inquirer, and is not complied with even on 
the part of him who makes it. With the origin of such 
guiding ideas we have no concern at this time. It is suf- 
ficient for our purpose to indicate their actual existence 
in the human mind, and their actual influence and opera- 
tion in all departments of its investigation. With the cor- 
rectness of these ideas, on the contrary, we have a much 
closer concern ; for if they exist in spite of all efforts to 
be rid of them, and make themselves visible in all the 
investigations of the student, and in all the products of 
his investigation, it is certainly of the first importance that 
they be true ideas ; that is, exact correspondents to the 
real nature of things. 

What then is the true idea of History with which we 
should commence our studies and reflections in this depart- 
ment of knowledge, and how may we know that it is the 
true idea, and therefore entitled to guide our inquiries, 
and shape our constructions % 

It is very generally conceded that in its abstract and 
essential nature all History, be it that of matter or of 
mind, is Evolution, and with this we agree. The idea of 
an unfolding is identical with that of a history. In think- 
ing of the one, we unavoidably think of the other, and 
this evinces an inward coincidence between the two con- 
ceptions. Unceasing motion, from a given point, through 
several stadia, to a final terminus, is a characteristic 



124 



belonging inseparably to any historic process. It is seen j 
unquestionably, in natural History : in the progressive 
expansion of the vegetable seed first into the blade, then 
into the ear, and then into the full corn in the ear. The 
account of this process of evolution is the history of the 
seed. And this same characteristic of an evolution is 
equally apparent in intellectual and moral History. In 
bringing before our minds the passage of an intellec- 
tual or a moral idea from one degree of energy and effi- 
ciency to another, in the history of a nation or of mankind, 
we unavoidably construe it as a continuous and connected 
career. The same fact of organic sequence is found 
within the sphere of mind and of freedom that appears in 
the kingdom of matter and of necessit}^, so that terms ap- 
plied to the connected events and processes of the natural 
world have a legitimate application in the moral, and a 
far more significant meaning. It is as proper to speak of 
the "growth" of the mind, as of the " growth " of the 
body ; of the " development " of a nation, as of the 
" development " of an oak. These two growths differ, 
toto genere, in respect to the base from which each pro- 
ceeds — the one being material, and the other mental ; the 
one being necessitated by physical law, and the other 
being spontaneous self-determination — but they agree, in 
that both are alike continuous, sequacious, and evolving 
processes. The phrases, " principles of history," " laws of 
history," "ideas and forces in histoiy," which occur so 
frequently in essays and treatises as to become monoto- 
nous, and which render the invention of synonymes and 
circumlocutions one of the most difficult of rhetorical 
expedients, all go to prove that the spontaneous concep- 
tion of History is that of a progressive evolution from a 
primitive involution. 

If any one doubts whether such phraseology is anything 



AND APPLIED TO HISTORY. 125 

more than the play of the fancy, and is inclined to believe 
that there is no actual correspondent to these terms in 
the truth and fact of the case, let hi in ask himself the 
question : " If Plistory has no real and solid substance, of 
the nature of germs, principles, ideas, laws and forces, then 
what substantial matter has it at all ? If these are all 
unreal, the mere fictions of the fancy, with no objective 
correspondents in that career of man on the globe which 
every one concedes to be a reality, and the most solemn 
of all, then what is the real essence of History % " For 
throwing out such deeper and more vital contents as we 
are speaking of, there remain only the unconnected 
materials of names, dates, and occurrences ; a multitudi- 
nous sea of effects without causes, an ocean of phenomena 
without a supporting ground, a chaos of atoms with no 
sort of connection or intermingling. A search after the 
truth and substance of the department, in this instance, as 
in all others, carries the mind below the surface to consti- 
tuent elements and principles, so that it perceives the 
world of Human History to be, after its own kind, as full 
of germs, laws, and forces, as the globe beneath our feet ; 
and that the characteristic of reality, of forceful influential 
being, is as predicable of the former as of the latter. 

This essential matter of Human History is continually 
passing through an evolution. This germ is slowly un- 
folding as it is the nature of all germs to do. Egyptian 
wheat may sleep in the swathes and foldings of a mummy 
through three thousand springs, but the purpose of its 
creation cannot be thwarted except by the destruction of 
its germinal substance. It was created to grow, and not- 
withstanding this long interval of slumbering life the de- 
velopment begins the instant the moist earth closes over it. 
In like manner an idea which originally belongs to the 
history of humanity may be hindered in its progress, and 



126 THE IDEA OF EVOLUTION DEFINED, 

for ages may seem to be out of existence; yet it is none 
the less in being and a reality. It is all the while a factor 
in the earthly career of mankind, and the historian who 
should throw it out of the account would misconceive and 
misrepresent the entire historic process. An idea of 
human reason, like popular liberty, e. g., may make no ex- 
ternal appearance for whole periods, but its reappearance, 
with an energy of operation heightened by its long sup- 
pression in the consciousness of nations, is the most im- 
pressive of all proofs that it has a necessary existence in 
human nature, and is destined to be developed. A doc- 
trine of divine reason, like that of justification by Christ's 
atonement, is a positive truth which has been lodged in the 
Christian mind by divine revelation, and is destined to 
a universal influence, a complete development, in and 
through the Church, notwithstanding that some branches 
and ages of the Church have lost it out of their religious 
experience. Whatever has been inlaid either in matter or 
in mind by the Creator of both, is destined by Him and 
under his own superintendence to be evolved ; and of all 
such necessary matter, be it in natural or in moral history, 
we may say that not a particle of it will be annihilated ; 
it will pass through the predetermined stages of a devel- 
opment and obtain a full exhibition. 

1. Proceeding, then, to the analytic definition of this 
idea of evolution, which enters so thoroughly into the 
theory and philosophy of History, the first characteristic 
that strikes our notice is the necessary connection of parts. 
Isolation is impossible. No single part can stand alone and 
exist by itself. The principle of interconnection binds all 
together, so that the part exists only in and for the whole. 
Atoms, in the original and strict meaning of the term, are 
no constituents of a process of evolution, and the atomic 
theory can throw no light upon such a process. The atom, 



AND APPLIED TO HISTORY. 127 

by the very etymology, is entirely disconnected from all 
besides itself. Matter has been cut down, ideally, to that 
infinitesimal point at which it constitutes the very first 
element, and, consequently, is now out of all connection, a 
single independent unit by itself. No such element as 
this, unassimilated and remaining so, can be a rudimental 
part in a development. Nothing that asserts an isolated 
existence, and obstinately refuses to enter into connections, 
can go into an evolution. The atomic particles of a heap 
of sand, for example, can never be part or particle of a 
process of growth, because each exists by and for itself. 
A rope of sand is the symbol of disconnection. 

If now we test the history of man by this first charac- 
teristic of an evolution, do we not find exact agreement 
between the two conceptions ? Human History is a con- 
tinuous line of connections. We can no more conceive of 
a true break or perfect disconnection in it, than in the 
current of a river. Though it naturally divides into 
periods and ages, distinguished from each other by epo- 
chal points, yet there is no separation at these points. The 
epoch itself, like a living joint in the human frame, is 
itself a tie by which the parts are articulated together and 
constitute one continuous organism. It is as impossible 
to find a real break and absolute disconnection in the his- 
tory of man, as in the history of nature. In nature, 
nothing but a miracle can stop the onward flow of a 
stream and wall up the waters on each side of a dry space 
in its channel ; and nothing but a new fiat of creative 
power could now sever the human race into two halves, 
each of which should be entirely separate from the other, 
and between which there should be no more reciprocity 
of connection and influence than there is between the 
angelic hosts and the human race. As the historian fol- 
lows the line backwards up toward the point of beginning, 



128 THE IDEA OF EVOLUTION DEFINED, 

he finds the succeeding linked to the preceding, civil- 
ization joining on upon civilization, arts and inventions 
clinging to arts and inventions further up the line, litera- 
tures and religions tied to preceding ones ; in short, he 
never comes to a point where there are no connected 
antecedents until he reaches the beginning of human his- 
tory, where the basis for the whole process was laid by a 
flat, supernatural and creative.* 

2. The second characteristic of an evolution is the nat- 
ural connection of parts. The sequence is not arbitrary 
and capricious; mere juxtaposition without any rational 
coherence. The two parts that are connected have a 
mutual adaptation to each other. The one was evidently 
intended to succeed the other, and the other evidently 
prepares for and expects the one. There is, consequently, 
nothing strange or whimsical in a genuine evolution, 
either in the sphere of nature or of spirit. Everything 
advances with a tranquil uniformity that precludes start- 
ling and unexpected changes, because each and every part 
is a preparation for that which is to come. Any move- 
ment in nature is always impressive from the perfect 
serenity with which it proceeds. Be it on a small, or on 
a large scale, be it the blowing of a rose, or the gor- 
geous death of the forest after the bloom and fulness of 

* Back of the creative act there is no evolution and no history. His- 
tory is in time solely, and pertains solely to the finite and created. It 
implies succession and changes, and therefore cannot pertain to a Being 
who, unlike his works, is not subject to evolving processes of any kind, 
but is '* the same, yesterday, to-day, and forever." God has no history 
because He has no development. "The G-od of the Bible," saya 
G-uizot (Meditations, 1st series, 192), "has no biography, neither has he 
any personal adventures. Nothing happens to him, and nothing changes 
in him ; he is always and invariably the same, a Being real and personal, 
absolutely distinct from the finite world and from humanity, identical 
and immutable in the bosom of the infinite diversity and movement. * I 
am that I am ' is the sole definition that he vouchsafes of himself." 



AND APPLIED TO HISTORY. 129 

summerj the process is as quiet as spring, as still as 
autumn. 

Were connection in an evolution unnatural, were it 
whimsical and capricious, the impression made by it would 
be very different from what it actually is. That fortuitous 
connection of parts, of which atheism in ancient and 
in modern times makes so much, is incompatible with 
the doctrine of development. This latter requires natural 
and adapted connection, and hence a presiding intel- 
ligence that sees and prepares the end from the beginning. 
It is indeed true, that the idea of evolution which we 
are analyzing has been employed in an atheistic man- 
ner, and enters largely into all pantheistic methods. Of 
this we shall speak hereafter, and against it we shall 
endeavor to guard, when examining the limitations and 
applications of the idea. But even at this point in the 
discussion, it is very obvious, that provided the basis 
and germ of the evolution is not supposed to be self-origi- 
nated, but is referred to the fiat of a Creator who is en- 
tirely above it, and out of it, and the absolute disposer of 
it ; provided the germ is regarded as a pure creation from 
nothing, then the naturalness of the sequences, from that 
initial point, furnishes one of the most convincing argu- 
ments against the doctrine of chance. Were there merely 
hap-hazard connection without inward coherence, there 
would be no evidence of an adaptive power, and an intel- 
ligent Author of the process. But seeing, as we do, 
in every genuine evolution, a prophetic anticipation of the 
succeeding in every element of the preceding, beholding, 
as we do, a deliberate and intentional progress from point 
to point, in this " thing of life." the notion of fortuity 
is banished at once from the mind. 

If now we test human History by this second character- 
istic of an evolution, we again see the coincidence and 
6* 



130 THE IDEA OF EVOLUTION DEFINED, 

identity of the two conceptions. Nothing is more natural 
in its connections than the history of mankind. Symme- 
trical gradations, expected transitions, anticipated termi- 
nations, appear all along its course. Nothing is abrupt and 
saltatory in the historic movement, but one thing follows 
on after another with all the ease and naturalness of phys- 
ical growth itself. There are convulsions and revolutions 
in the process, it is true, but they are always prepared 
for. They may indeed, and they often do, burst upon the 
notice of the living actors in them with the suddenness and 
crash of a thunderbolt from a clear sky, but it is because 
the living actors are unthinking actors, and give no heed 
to the significant premonitions. The student of History, 
however, the reflecting mind that is not so caught in this 
mighty stream of tendency as to be unable to rise above it 
and see the historic preparation, is never startled in this 
manner. He sees the awful preparation in the preceding 
centuries of tyranny, of poverty, of ignorance, of irre- 
ligion. Upon his mind it is no sudden shooting of a 
meteor from the depths of space into the totally black 
vault of night, but a true sunrise. For him, "far off its 
coming shone." Yet the student sees only what really 
exists. He does not make History, but finds it ; and he 
finds it, even in its wildest and apparently most capricious 
sections, a genuine evolution or series of natural connec- 
tions. 

3. The third characteristic of an evolution is the organ- 
ic connection of the parts. In this we reach the summit 
of the series, and arrive at the most significant and fruit- 
ful property. For the connection between two things may 
be both necessary and natural, and yet not organic. 
Mechanical connection is such. Take, for example, two 
cog wheels in a machine. Here the parts are necessarily 
connected ; that is, they have no value except in relation 



AND APPLIED TO HISTORY. 131 

to each other. And they are naturally connected ; that is, 
they are adapted by their construction to play into each 
other. But there is no higher bond than this merely ex- 
ternal and mechanic one. There is connection, but no 
interconnection. The term "organic," consequently, 
merits fuller examination than either of the others that 
have been employed in the analysis. 

Perhaps no better definition of an organism can be 
given than that of Kant. As distinguished from a me- 
chanism, he defines it as " a product in which each and 
every part is, reciprocally, means and end" # If we look 
at the human body, for example, we find that each consti- 
tuent portion must be regarded, now, as the sole end for 
which the whole exists, and, then again, as merely the 
means or instrument by which the whole exists. The flesh, 
in one aspect of it, is the end for which the functions 
of respiration, circulation, secretion, digestion, and loco- 
motion, are carried on. In one view of them, all these 
great processes have for their sole object this clothing of 
the immortal with its mortality. And yet we see again, 
that the production of this tissue is itself only a means 
whereby these systems of respiration, circulation, diges- 
tion, and secretion, are themselves kept in operation. The 
whole body exists for the eye, as truly as the eye exists for 
the whole body ; for if this or any other member be 
maimed or mutilated, the entire vital force of the organ- 
ism is at once subsidized and set to work to repair the 
injury. It is this reciprocity in the relation of the parts, 
that betokens the organic connection. It is this existence 
of the part for the w T hole, and of the whole for the part, 
that sets an organism so much higher up the scale of ex- 
istence than a mechanism. 

* Urtheilskraft, § 65. 



132 THE IDEA OF EVOLUTION DEFINED, 

An organic development, consequently, be it within the 
sphere of nature or of mind, is one in which all the ele- 
ments and agencies mutually relate to each other, and 
mutually influence each other. Intercommunication, in- 
termingling, action and reaction ; these and such like, are 
the terms that set our thoughts upon the trail of such a 
constantly shifting and changing process as that of an ex- 
panding germ. For it is because the conception which 
we are endeavoring to define is so full of pliant, elastic, 
and interfusing properties, that it is so difficult to fix it in 
language. It is because the word " evolution " is so allied 
to that other most inexplicable word " life," that a writer 
has done the best that can be done, if, by his approximate 
statements, he has merely awakened the mind to an inti- 
mation of the meaning, and set it musing upon the sugges- 
tive but mysterious thought. 

Again, this action and reaction, this interconnection 
and intermingling, implies inward and unceasing motion 
in an organism. Whenever an evolution comes to a total 
stop, it comes to a dead stop. 

' ' By ceaseless motion all that is subsists. 
Constant rotation of the unwearied wheel 
That Nature rides upon maintains her health, 
Her beauty, her fertility. She dreads 
An instant's pause, and lives but while she moves." * 

Movement is inseparable from the conception, and hence 
the adjective " progressive" is always connected with the 
substantive, either expressly or by ellipsis. The notion of 
an incessant flux and reflux of elements and properties is 
as inseparable from the idea of an evolution, as it is in- 
compatible with that of artificial composition. In the in- 

* Cowper's Task, B. I. Similarly Plato (Phaedrus, 245 c.) 
rh 8e vir #AAou Kiuovfievou iravXav i%ov Kivriaecos, iravAav €%et (fl>rjs. 



AND APPLIED TO HISTORY. 133 

stance of mechanical production, the motion is all ab extra, 
in the mind of the workman. His work, after all that 
his inventive genius has done to it, is as hard, immobile, 
and internally dead as it ever was. It has in it nothing 
of an expansion, because the living principle by which it 
was originated is not in it, but in the mind of the mechanic. 
This, it is true, is a living thing, a living soul, but it is 
unable to imbreathe itself, as a principle of growth and 
formation, into its rigid wooden or metallic product. The 
story of Pygmalion and his statue is still a fable. The 
" breathing " marble, and the u glowing " canvas are still 
and ever figures of speech. No product of finite power 
can be organic ; for there is no pervasive moulding of the 
elements, no assimilation of the rudiments, no internal stir 
and fusion, in the work of the creature. 

Again, an organic process implies potentiality as the 
basis of it. It is of importance, at this point, to direct 
attention to the distinction between creation and evolu- 
tion, and thereby preclude the pantheistic employment of 
the latter idea. An evolution is simply the unfolding of 
that which has been previously folded up, and not the 
origination of entity from nonentity. The growth of a 
germ is not the creation of it, but is merely the expansion 
of a substance already existing. All attempts, therefore, 
to explain the origin of the universe by the doctrine of 
evolution, like the Indian Cosmogony, drive the mind back 
from point to point in a series of secondary processes, still 
leaving the inquiry after the primary origin and actual 
beo-mnino; of things unanswered. For it is not creation, 
but only emanation, when the world is regarded as the 
evolution of an eternal germ. Such a conception as this 
latter is, moreover, metaphysically absurd; for the idea 
of undeveloped being has no rational meaning except in 
reference to the Temporal and the Finite. Progressive 



134 THE IDEA OF EVOLUTION DEFINED, 

development within the Divine nature would imply a 
career for the Deity in which He was passing from less to 
more perfect stages of existence, and would thus bring 
Him within the sphere of the relative and conditioned. 
Latency or potentiality is necessarily excluded from the 
Eternal One, by virtue of that absolute perfection and 
metaphysical self-completeness whereby his being is 
" without variableness or shadow of turning." His uncre- 
ated essence is incapable of evolving processes, and hence 
the created universe cannot be a part of the Divine essence, 
but must be another and secondary substance which is 
the pure make of his sheer fiat. To the question, there- 
fore, which still and ever returns : " How does this poten- 
tial basis come into existence ? To what, or to whom, do 
these germs of future and unceasing processes in matter 
and in mind owe their origin % " the theist gives but one 
answer. He applies the doctrine of creation out of noth- 
ing, to all germinal substance whatsoever.* 

For the Deity, though self -complete and incapable of 
development himself, has yet made that which is potential 

* The whole fabric of ancient and modern Pantheism rests upon the 
petitio principii that the doctrine of evolution has the same legitimate 
application to the Infinite and Eternal, that it has to the Finite and 
Temporal. There are fatal objections to this pantheistic postulate. 
First, it contradicts the idea of an Eternal Being. For the eternal is the 
unchangeable ; but evolution is change itself. Furthermore, the con- 
sciousness of an eternal Being must be all-comprehending and there- 
fore simultaueous and without succession ; but if, like man or angel, 
God is capable of an evolution, he must be conscious of the series of 
changes implied in it. Secondly, the pantheistic postulate contradicts 
the idea of an absolutely Perfect Being. For if all Being is only one 
Being, and is passing from less perfect to more perfect modes of exist- 
ence, and may pass from more perfect to less perfect (since evolution 
may proceed in either direction), then there is no absolutely Perfect 
Being whatever. All Being is going on to perfection, perhaps, but as 
yet all Being is imperfect. 



AND APPLIED TO HIS10RY. 135 

and destined to an unfolding. He has created a universe 
of matter and mind that is full of latent powers and agen- 
cies. The works of his hand not only display excellence 
in the very first moments of their existence, but reveal a 
still more marvellous excellence as they unfold and evolve 
their interior capacities. The whole progress of natural 
science is a gaze of admiration, and should be an anthem 
of adoration, towards an Architect who has inlaid that 
which is still more wonderful than what appears on the 
6urface ; who has provided in the single, instantaneous, 
creative, act of his omnipotence, for an evolution which 
is to run on under his own superintendence through all 
coming ages, until stopped by the same miraculous fiat.* 
In this property of potentiality, thus strictly defined and 
distinguished, we have one of the most absolute essentials 
of an evolution. If this conception is unreal, then is that 
of evolution. If we cannot conceive of, and believe in, 
the previous creation and deposit of a material, in order 
that it may be used at a future time, of the implanting 
of a principle which is to manifest itself, it may be, ages 
ahead, of the predetermination of a process and a prepara- 
tion for it long before it becomes an actuality ; if all such 
ideas as these are visionary, and all such thinking as this 

* Theology distinguishes between substances and their modifications ; 
that is, between what is originated from nothing, and what develops 
from that which is thus originated. "It is the former," says Howe 
(Oracles, II. ix.), " that is the proper object of creation strictly taken ; 
the modifications of things are not properly created, in the strictest 
sense of creation, but are educed and brought forth out of those sub- 
stantial things that were themselves created, or made out of nothing." 

It is obvious to remark, here, that at no point in its history can a 
created substance become self-subsistent. Hence, all processes of evo- 
lution must be regarded as conducted under a sustaining energy from 
God, which in technical phrase is Providence, in distinction from Crea- 
tion. The predetermination of the process, and the preparation for 
it, is, in the same technical phraseology, the Divine Decree. 



136 



has no correspondent in the world of real it} 7 ; then the 
idea of an organic development is inconceivable and ab- 
surd. The best argument in its favor, however, would be 
to throw it all away, by thinking it all away, and then 
seriously ask the question : " What solid thing is now left 
either in the created universe of nature or of mind ? " 
Expel the fact of potency, of latent powers and principles, 
from the sphere of the Created, in which alone, as we have 
remarked above, it has any application, and nothing is left 
but the phenomena of the instant, or a world of shadows 
and spectra. 

Finally, an organic development implies identity of 
original substance in all the phenomenal changes that ac- 
company the expanding process. Those who have con- 
founded the idea which we are defining, with that of cre- 
ation, have also misapprehended it at this point. The 
gradual advance in an evolution from something old to 
something new, is not a progress to something absolutely 
new ; that is new in the sense of never having had any 
kind of existence before. An evolution can never produce 
anything aboriginal ; it cannot create ex nihilo. The 
Creator alone can do this, and He does it when by His 
fiat He calls the germ with all its potentiality into being. 
An evolution cannot add an iota to the sum of created sub- 
stance. It is confined, by the supernatural and omnipo- 
tent power that called its germ into existence, to a prede- 
termined course and task ; which is simply, and purely, 
and exactly, to put forth what has been put in, to evolve 
just what has been involved. 

It follows, consequently, that the progressive advance 
and unfolding which is to be seen all along the line of an 
evolution is simply the expansion over a wider surface of 
that which from the instant of its creation has existed in 
a more invisible and metaphysical form. The progress 



AND APPLIED TO HISTORY. 137 

or gain is formal and not material, external and not in- 
ternal, visible and not invisible. Whether we take a seed 
like the acorn, or an entity like the human race, it is evi- 
dent that development can create no new primary sub- 
stance, or essential principle, in either. The utmost which 
the vivific life in each instance can do, is to assimilate al- 
ready existing materials in order to its own manifestation. 
The last individual oak preserves its identity of substance, 
and sameness of essential principle, with the first acorn, 
and the births of individual men are not so many hundred 
millions of repetitions of the creative act, but only a serial 
exhibition of the result of the single fiat in Eden ; of the 
one human species, or common substance of humanity, 
with the origin of which the creation of man, as distin- 
guished from his propagation, began and ended. For if, 
on the one hand, there were an annihilation and subtrac- 
tion of the old aboriginal matter, or, on the other, a crea- 
tion and addition of a new, there would be a departure 
from the archetype, and the tree would be another than 
the oak, and the individual would not be a true specimen 
of humanity. But such deviations are precluded; for this 
potential basis, from which the evolution starts, is the in- 
volution that contains not only all the essential substance 
of the process, but also the law by which it is to be devel- 
oped and exhibited ; so that while there is unceasing 
change and constant variety in the outward manifesta- 
tion, there is perfect identity and sameness in the inward 
essence. 

Passing, now, from the tangled wilderness of analytic 
definition, into the level and open fields of application 
and illustration, if we test human History by this third 
characteristic of an evolution, we shall see more plainly 
than ever, that the two conceptions agree with each other. 
The history of man is certainly characterized by recipro- 



138 



cal action in its elements. Ideas, principles, laws, forces, 
events, and men, are constantly acting and reacting upon 
each, other from the beginning to the end of a historic 
process. Everything influences everything. Everything 
receives influence from everything. It is impossible to 
make a separation between the factors, so that this inter- 
action and intermingling shall stop at a given point. 
Take a single feature of Secular History, for illustration 
the Political Revolutions, and see how this law of recipro- 
cal action prevails. The idea of liberty promulgated in 
one nation becomes the realized fact in another, and the 
realized fact, again, becomes the stimulating example 
which wakes the slumbering idea in a third. A treatise 
on government by Sidney in the seventeenth century and 
in monarchical England, linds its realization in the eigh- 
teenth century in the American Constitution. This con- 
crete example repasses the Atlantic, and becomes the 
mightiest of the forces that convulse the old feudal mon- 
archy of France, and the most influential of the agencies at 
work in Europe for the political elevation of the masses. 
But that treatise of Sidney itself was not merely the 
propagator of influences ; it was the recipient of a most 
mighty influence coming down from the remote past. The 
currents of Greek and Roman Republicanism flowed 
through the English Republican. The political brain of 
Plato and Aristotle, of Brutus the Consul and Brutus the 
Patriot, was the brain in the heart of Sidney. 

If we look at any of the processes in the natural world, 
do we find any more convincing proofs of interaction and 
reciprocity of agencies, than we find in the world of 
human society ? If the terms action and reaction are not 
figurative in the former sphere, are they not full of the 
most solid meaning in the latter ? And is it not the true 
end and aim of the student of human History, to make 



AND APPLIED TO HISTORY. 139 

this play of living agencies and influences as real to his 
own mind and feelings, as its correspondent is to the stu- 
dent of nature % The scientific naturalist cannot for a 
moment believe that nature is a mechanism, and that 
organism is a fiction and metaphor in this realm. A 
thousand treatises, each a thousand times more ingenious 
than that in which Des Cartes* attempts to demonstrate 
that all so-called vital forces in the lower animals are in 
reality mechanical ones, and that the body of the brute is 
as much an artificial production as a watch, would not 
overthrow the belief of the natural philosopher that the 
physical world exhibits in all parts of it a process of 
organic development, and that natural objects are the 
products of a law of life and growth. The conviction 
that there is an internal and not merely fanciful analogy 
between the worlds of nature and of mind, so that the 
same fundamental fact of evolution prevails in both, should 
firmly possess the mind of the inquirer in the department 
of human History. The relation between the subjective 
principle and the outward stimuli is the same in one in- 
stance as in the other. Is there any more of vital recipro- 
city between the tropical Fauna or Flora, and the tem- 
perature, amount of atmospheric moisture, elevation of 
the land above the sea, prevailing winds, amount of sun- 
light, geological formation and soil, of the tropical regions, 
than there is of vital reciprocity between the Celtic, Gothic, 
and Roman components of national character, the insular 
isolating residence, the influence of Greek and Roman 
literatures, of commerce, of the Christian religion, of 
the intestine wars of the Roses and the wars for foreign 
conquest, and the historical development of England ? 

* " He denied the supermaterialism of animal life, placing it entirely 
under the laws of mechanics, as many are now denying the supernatu- 
ralisra of Christianity." — Twesten's Dogmatik. I. 318. 



14:0 THE IDEA OF EVOLUTION DEFINED, 

Ought not the analysis and contemplation of this recipro- 
city of agencies to produce the same sense of organic con- 
nections, the same fresh feeling of a living process, and 
the same euthusiastic wonder, with which the naturalist 
examines material nature ; with which a Gilbert White 
minutely surveys physical nature within the limits of his 
rural parish ; with which a Humboldt surveys the cos- 
mos?* 

Again, is not Human History like any other organic 
development, characterized by an inward and unceasing 
motion? Is there any stagnation or immobility in it? 
Seize the process of human life at any point you please, 
and do you not find -it stirring like a force and beating- 
like a pulse? Even the most externally motionless period 
has its fierce passions and intense emotions. The darkest 
of the Dark Ages, the more it is studied, the more is it 
seen to have a human interest. The most stagnant stratum 

* " Those truths are always most valuable which are most historical, 
that is, which tell us most about the past and future states of the 
object to which they belong-. In a tree, for instance, it is more import- 
tant to give the appearance of energy and elasticity in the limbs which 
is indicative of growth and life, than any particular character of leaf, or 
texture of bough. It is more important that we should feel that the 
uppermost sprays are creeping higher and higher into the sky, and be 
impressed with the current of life and motion which is animating' every 
fibre, than that we should view the exact pitch of relief with which 
those fibres are thrown out against the sky. For the first truths tell us 
tales about the tree, about what it has been, and will be, while the last 
are characteristic of it only in its present state, and are in no way talk- 
ative about themselves. Talkative facts are always more interesting 
and more important than silent ones. So again the lines in a crag 
which mark its stratification, and how it has been washed and rounded 
by water, or twisted and drawn out in fire, are more important, because 
they tell more than the stains of the lichens which change year by year, 
and the accidental fissures of frost or decomposition ; not but that both 
of these are historical, but historical in a less distinct manner and foi 
shorter periods." — Ruskin's Modern Painters, I. chap. vi. 



AND APPLIED TO HISTORY. 141 

of the Dead Sea undulates. It has been said that the 
savage has no history ; that there is in this form of society 
only a dead monotony nn enlivened by the play of human 
feelings and the struggle of human passions. But this is 
not so. As, according to Dr. Johnson, the biography of 
the most unimportant individual on the globe, were it 
fully written out so that the life should appear just and 
fully as it was, would overflow with interest and entertain- 
ment for all men, so the real every-day life of even a 
savage horde would be an addition to Universal History 
that would waken earnest attention. Who would not 
eagerly peruse the history of a nomadic Tartar tribe, if it 
were written with the simple and minute fidelity of a 
chronicle of Froissart % * Who would not even spare 
some of the more outwardly imposing sections of General 
History, if in their place he could have a true unvarnished 
tale of the wanderings of one of those Scythian or Celtic 
races who were the first to come westward from Central 
Asia, the birthplace and cradle of mankind? What a 
charm and light would be thrown over the earlier history 
of Greece and Rome, if a veritable account of one or more 
branches of that great Pelasgic race ; that savage source 
of " the beauty that was Greece and the grandeur that was 
Rome ; " should be discovered among the manuscripts of 
a cloister % 

But the secret of the interest which is thus felt in any 
and every section of human history, lies in the fact that 
there is an unceasing movement, an incessant stir and fer- 
mentation, in each and every section. The ocean itself is 
not more unresting than the history of man. The oceanic 
currents are not more distinct and unmistakable than those 
streams of tendency which sway eastward and westward, 

* One of the most unique papers of De Quincey is " The flight of a 
Tartar Tribe." 



142 THE IDEA OF EVOLUTION DEFINED, 

northward and southward, in the migration of nations, in 
the rise and decline of civilizations, in the founding and 
fall of empires, in the alternations of national glory and 
decay. Motion, botli internal and external, is the charac- 
teristic which first impresses the historical student. In 
passing from other domains of inquiry into this, he finds 
himself to be coming out from quiet vales into the region 
of storms; from the place of secured results and garnered 
products, into the place of active preparation and produc- 
tion. In the sphere of Poetry, there is only the still air 
and golden light of setting suns. In the sphere of Science, 
the mind is in the serene region of pure thought. But in 
History, the inquirer conies out into the world of agencies, 
actors, and actions, where everything is under motion, and, 
in the Baconian phrase, all " resounds like the mines." 

Again, does not Human History, like any other organic 
process, rest upon a basis of potentiality ? Human life is 
the Old in the New ; the old being in a new aspect. Hu- 
man History does not create its wealth and variety of ma- 
terial as it goes along, but merely expands a varied latency 
that was originated primarily when the morning stars 
sang together, and subsequently when Adam fell. Poten- 
tiality meets us at every point, and accounts for the lights 
and shadows of the " pictured page." National differences 
and peculiarities, and consequently all that is unique and 
distinctive in the career of nations, must be referred to a 
provision made therefor in the day of man's creation. 
Compare the Rome of the age of Numa Pompilius with 
the Pome of the age of Augustus Caesar. The latter dis- 
plays elements and characteristics that had lain so entirely 
dormant, in preceding sections of this national history, 
that if Pome had gone out of political existence in the 
struggle with the Samnite or the Carthaginian the human 
mind never would have known of their existence, but would 



AND APPLIED TO HISTORY. 143' 

they for this reason not have been real entities ? It is in- 
deed true, that they would not have been manifested, but 
would they not just as really have been rudiments in that 
original political germ or basis for a nation which, whether 
completely unfolded or not, had a wholeness and rounded 
capacity of its own, because it was an integral part of the 
" good " and perfect creation of God, in the day that " the 
Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and 
breathed into his nostrils the breath of life?" The lan- 
guage of Ezekiel (xxviii. 13) respecting Tyre is applicable 
to every nation of mankind : " Thou hast been in Eden, the 
garden of God ; the workmanship of thy tabrets, and of 
thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast 
created." A potential existence is by no means an imagi- 
nary or fictitious one. A germ may not be permitted to 
run its course of evolution, and display all its marvellous 
inlay of elements and individuals ; but it is none the less a 
fixed quantity by itself, and must be estimated by what it 
was primarily endowed with by the Creator. If a race 
should be stopped short in mid-career, by the same fiat that 
created it in the beginning, its dignity and standing in the 
scale of universal being would have to be determined by 
its created capacities ; not by what had actually come 
forth, but by what had been originally put in : by the 
amount of life and the quantum of varied latency that had 
been primarily summed up in it. 

It is by virtue of this potential basis that Human His- 
tory exhibits that union of two opposite properties, per- 
manence and progression, which is so baffling to the mind. 
It has a permanent identity and sameness, because it ex- 
hibits the same species of being and the same eternal 
truth in all its sections. It also presents a constant vari- 
ety and change, because it shows this same human nature, 
and this same common verity, in new forms. Each age 



144 THE IDEA OF EVOLUTION DEFINED, 

and period is as fresh and original in its appearance, as if it 
were the first in the series, and looked upon the new earth 
for the first time that it ever was looked upon, and lived 
the first human life that ever was lived. This co-inherence 
and co-working of the two factors, of the Old and the 
New, of the Conservatism and the Progress, is the very 
essence of Human History. It is difficult, we are aware, 
to seize and hold both conceptions at one and the same 
time, as the constant debate between the man of Conserva- 
tism and the man of Progress shows. It is easy and na- 
tural to separate what God has joined together, and to 
make choice of the one or of the other characteristic, as 
the key to all History and the foundation of all practical 
life and action. It is simpler to say that History is per- 
manent without progress, or else that it is progressive 
without permanence, than to say that it is a true develop- 
ment and therefore both permanent and progressive. The 
extremists upon both sides have a much easier task than the 
one w T ho occupies the central position between them. A 
simple idea is much easier to define and manage than a 
complex one. But it is not so fertile, so prolific, or so 
completely true. If simplicity and facility of manage- 
ment were all that the philosopher had to care for, the 
great comprehensive ideas of science would soon disap- 
pear ; for they are neither uncomplex nor facile. " The 
simplest of governments," says Webster while defending 
the complexity of republicanism, " is a despotism." The 
simplest of theories is the theoiy of an extremist. 

We have now given a theoretic answer to the question : 
What is the abstract idea of History % by specifying the 
chief characteristics of a process of evolution and point- 
ing out their identity with those of an historical process. 
It is not pretended that this analysis and comparison is a 
complete one, and that nothing more could be said upon 



AND APPLIED TO HISTORY. 145 

the subject ; that it is a perfectly clear one, and could not 
be made more lucid. Yet no one who has ever made the 
attempt ; an attempt much more common now than it 
was in the last century, when a different intellectual 
method prevailed ; to treat a subject physiologically, * 
will be hasty to complain of the lack of thoroughness, or 
especially of plainness. Let any one peruse the tracts 
and treatises composed upon this general subject of pro- 
gressive development, and observe their comparative 
vagueness, and he will be convinced that it is, intrinsi- 
cally, one of the most difficult subjects to discuss, in the 
whole philosophical catalogue. For it implies the idea 
of life / one of the most familiar, and at the same time 
most mysterious and baffling of all ideas. It necessitates 
a dynamic method of treating the subject ; a method 
which compels the mind, if we may so say, to a subter- 
ranean labor and examination ; a method therefore that 
precludes that liveliness of mental movement, that perfect 
distinctness of statement, and especially that opulence of 
illustration and bright sparkling diction and style, which 
are characteristic of a more outward mode of investiga- 
tion. To trace a law of life is a far more difficult and 
arduous attempt for authorship, than to draw a beautiful 
picture. To work the mind slowly, pertinaciously, and 
thoroughly, into a deep central process of development, 
running like a magnetic current through ages of time, 
winding here, thwarted there, uprearing itself and coming 
forth in reformations and revolutions, and then retiring 
down into such depths of dormancy and slumber that its 
reawakening seems almost an impossibility ; to treat 
Human History in this profound and dynamic manner is 
far more difficult than by the aid of a versatile mind and 

* The term is employed in its etymological meaning- ; to denote a 
method that proceeds from the intrinsic nature of an object. 

7 



14:6 THE IDEA OF EVOLUTION DEFINED, 

a lively fancy to cause a series of brilliant pictures, of 
dazzling dissolving views, to pass with rapidity before the 
mind of. a rapid reader. But which method is the most 
fruitful and fertilizing % Which is most suggestive ? 
Which is best adapted for the foundation of a course of 
study and investigation ? Which is capable of an un- 
limited expansion, and influence upon the intellect of a 
student? Grant that, in the beginning, both the writer 
and the reader feel the need of further reflection and 
still plainer statements, so that there is a sort of unsatis- 
f action in both ; yet is not this very unrest a thorn and 
spur to still more profound and clear intuitions % This is 
one great benefit to be derived from the adoption, and re- 
ception into the mind, of an idea like that of evolution. 
Its meaning is not so entirely upon the surface, and so 
level to the most thoughtless comprehension, that he who 
runs may read it, and exhaust its whole significance in a 
twinkling. There is ever something in reserve, something 
still to be pondered over, something still to be more dis- 
tinctly elucidated and stated. The idea is itself a seed 
sown in the mind, having an endless power of germina- 
tion and fructification. A seed is not so striking or so 
sparkling an object as a diamond ; it does not make such 
an instantaneous impression, and it is a thousandfold more 
full of mystery. But while the gem merely flickers its 
cold glittering flashes, generation after generation, upon 
the single brow of beauty or of pride, the seed is repeat- 
ing itself in the harvests of a continent, in the physical 
comfort and thereby the general weal of a race. Easiness 
of immediate apprehension, distinctness and vivacity of 
first statement, facility of being managed, ought all to be 
set second to depth, comprehensiveness of scope, richness 
and variety of contents, and fertility of influence, when 
selecting an idea that is to constitute the basis of a de- 



AND APPLIED TO HISTORY. 147 

partment of knowledge, and guide the investigations of a 
student through its whole long and wide domain. It is 
for this reason, and not because a more perspicacious and 
facile method could not be selected, that we desire to ex- 
plain so far as is possible, and to recommend, what has 
been termed the theory of genetic development, as the one 
which has most affinity with the real nature of History, 
and which consequently is the best org anon or instrument 
for its investigation. The great change that has taken 
place, within the present century, in the way of conceiv- 
ing and constructing the history of man, is owing to the 
adoption and use of a method that was foreign to the 
mind and the intellectual tendencies of the eighteenth 
century. One only needs to compare history like that of 
Dr. Robertson with history like that of Dr. Arnold, or 
history like that of Gibbon with history like that of Nie- 
buhr, to see that from some cause or other a great change 
has come over the department. There is no improve- 
ment in respect to style. For who has excelled the clean 
purity of Robertson's diction, the elegant simplicity^ of 
Hume's narrative, the harmonious yet energetic pomp of 
Gibbon's description ? Perhaps there is, in general, a 
falling off in respect to formal properties. But, on the 
other hand, is there not a vast improvement in all the 
material properties of historical composition ? Is not the 
point from which men and events are now contemplated, 
far more central and commanding % Is not much more 
made of dominant ideas, general tendencies, prominent 
individualities, in short of the germs and dynamic forces 
of Human History, than was made during the last cen- 
tury? Are not the lessons of this science more impres- 
sive and solemn now, than they were as taught in 1750 ? 
Is not the department itself exerting an influence upon 
other departments far more modifying and transforming 



148 THE IDEA OF EVOLUTION DEFINED, 

than formerly ? In short, if History may have lost some- 
thing of that elegance and transparency which character- 
izes a product of art, has it not gained far more of that 
vitality, and power of influential impression, which be- 
longs to a product of nature ? The cause of this change, 
in. the spirit and influence of the department, is traceable 
directly to a growing disposition to regard the history of 
Man, as well as that of Nature, as an evolving process, 
and consequently as subject to a law of life and growth. 
Indeed it is noticeable, that this change has come in con- 
temporaneously with a corresponding change in the 
method of contemplating Nature itself. As Natural 
Science has become more dynamic, so has History. The 
naturalist of the present day is not willing to regard life 
as the result of organization, and then to explain organi- 
zation into a very curious and recondite arrangement of 
atomic matter. Mysterious as the principle itself may be, 
the investigator now prefers to assume a vital principle 
as the origin and cause of all organization, and of all 
those phenomena which some would explain by the me- 
chanical view and theory of nature.* For though he 
starts with a mystery which probably he can never clear 
up, yet he thereby introduces a clearness, a consistency, a 
naturalness and vitality, into all the facts and phenomena 
of his science, which are never attained by the material- 
izing naturalists. His intellectual self-denial in the begin- 
ning, is rewarded richly in the end. In like manner, the 
historian, by taking upon himself the severer task of re- 
garding Human History as a process of intellectual and 

* This was written in 1854, previous to the recent temporary revi- 
val of the mechanical physics. At that date, the tendency of natu- 
ral science was wholly in the direction of the physics of Kepler, New- 
ton, Linnaeus, Kant, Cuvier, Blumenbach, John Hunter, Owen, and 
Agassiz. 



AND APPLIED TO HISTOKY. 149 

moral evolution, and of penetrating into its intricate 
organic connections, is in the end rewarded for his dispo- 
sition to be thorough and profound, by finding the sub- 
ject of his investigations far more prolific and impressive 
than it ever was before. He is also rewarded by finding 
that this philosophic method, exacting as it is, in the 
beginning, upon the closest reflection and strictest disci- 
pline of the mind, in the end throws a clear light upon 
those deeper and darker portions of History, upon which 
not a ray of light is cast by a more superficial and easy 
mode of examination. 

Inasmuch as the department of Church History has felt 
the influence of the dynamic method more thoroughly 
than other portions of the history of man have as yet, and 
the Church Historian been the most successful in applying 
the doctrine of development to historical materials, we 
shall, in the remainder of this section, draw our illustra- 
tions from this branch of the general subject. 

One of the most valuable results of the application of 
the idea of evolution is seen in that part of Ecclesiastical 
History which is denominated the History of Doctrine. 
This may be said to have come into existence since the 
adoption of the physiological method. It is indeed true 
that the more thoughtful of the ecclesiastical historians of 
the eighteenth century, such as Mosheim and the elder 
Planck, recognize the influence of particular doctrines 
upon that course of external events to which they gave most 
attention ; but they usually connect the doctrine, or the 
truth, with some individual of strong or passionate char- 
acter, from whom, more than from the truth or doctrine, 
the influence upon men and things proceeds. Hence in 
treating of the Reformation, for example, a disproportion- 
ate weight is attached to the personal religious force and 
wants of a single individual like Luther, or to the personal 



150 THE IDEA OF EVOLUTION DEFINED, 

intellectual culture and aspirations of an Erasmus ; to the 
undervaluation of that great scripture doctrine of justifi- 
cation by faith, which, together with the general religious 
craving of the age in which a Luther shared so strongly 
and an Erasmus so feebly, was the true historic ground of 
the movement, the real central historic force. * It is not 
enough to trace the processes of history to merely individ- 
ual influence. This pragmatic method, as it has been 
termed, must rest upon that genetic one of which we are 
speaking; for the individual is rooted in the general, and 
all this influence of historical characters has a deeper 
ground in historic ideas, truths, and doctrines. But this 
was not seen and acted upon, until the mind of the his- 
torian was led dowm to the doctrines themselves, as the 
ultimate sources and causes. The step taken by writers 
like Mosheim, Walch, and Planck, in sacred history, and 
Hume, Robertson, and Gibbon, in secular, was one in ad- 
vance, but was not the ultimate one. It w 7 as something 
valuable, to connect the external series of events and phe 
nomena with the characters, opinions, and acts of promi 
nent individuals, but it was something invaluable, because, 
indispensable to a truly philosophic history, to connect 
events, phenomena, prominent individuals themselves, to- 
gether with the ages and great tendencies which they re- 
presented, with the great standing truths of reason and 
revelation, and the plans and purposes of that Supreme 
Being who is the author and revealer of all. 

This step was taken, when the historian began to con- 
ceive and construct the facts of History on the method of 
a genetic development. He then began, as this term de- 
notes, to trace the genesis of the process; to seize it in its 
very deepest source and lowest place of origin. This 

* See Baur, Lehrbucb. der Dogmengeschichte, S. 38. 



AND APPLIED TO HISTORY. 151 

necessarily compelled him to go beyond not merely the 
external events themselves, but also their connection with 
leading individuals, down to the first springs of History in 
the plans and purposes of God, and, in Church History 
especially, to the truths and doctrines which God has re- 
vealed in his written word, as the germ and measure of 
all true development. For it is plain that, so long as the 
historian confined himself to the external occurrences, and 
their comparatively superficial relation to individual men, 
he was still at a great distance from the real causes and 
forces of History ; from the absolute centre and origin of 
its processes. Notwithstanding all his pretensions to a 
philosophic treatment of the subject, he was still at work 
in an upper stratum, and busied with secondary agencies. 
He could reach the ultimate foundation of the whole his- 
toric superstructure, only by sinking a deeper shaft, and 
getting below events, and individual actions, to the revealed 
ideas and designs of God. For here is the origin, and this 
is the genesis. There is no source more ultimate than 
this. The historian who starts from this point, starts from 
the final centre. 

We cannot, perhaps, more appropriately conclude this 
enunciation of the abstract idea of evolution, than by 
directing attention, for a moment, to that Church Historian 
who has employed it more persistently, and successfully, 
than any other investigator, secular or ecclesiastical. The 
Church History of JSTeander is an embodiment of the idea 
of development. It is organized throughout by this sin- 
gle thought. And the organization is most thorough. It 
pervades each historic section ; the external history, the 
history of polity, of worship, of morality, of doctrine. 
Each of these sections exhibits an expanding process of 
evolution, either upward or downward. Each of these is 
reciprocally related to all the others, so that the whole, 



152 THE IDEA OF EVOLUTION DEFINED, 

eventually, are lightly but firmly bound together into a 
greater organism. We do not assert that the idea of the 
Christian Religion, as Meander conceives it in his own 
mind, is so exactly conformed to the New Testament rep- 
resentation, that the constructing principle of his history 
is entirely free from defective qualities. This would be 
saying more than can be of any uninspired mind. The 
most reverent admirer of this devout historian must 
acknowledge that his construction of Church History is 
affected by subjective elements, that his apprehension of 
Christianity is sometimes unfavorably modified by the age 
and country in which he lived, and especially by the type 
of culture into which he was born and bred. But all this 
can be said, and should be as we believe, without denying 
the substantial correctness of the idea which impelled and 
guided his mind in the composition of his work, or im- 
puting to him any more material errors than the scientific 
mind is always Liable to. 

Without, therefore, entering upon any detailed criticism 
of Meander's conception of Christianity, which would in- 
volve a_ criticism of the whole work, we wish merely to 
allude to the remarkable perseverance, and tenacity, with 
which it is employed in the detection, analysis, and syn- 
thesis of the historic processes themselves. That mono- 
tony, which is complained of by a class of critics whose 
aesthetic feeling is stronger than their philosophic, is the 
monotony of organization. The types of organic life are 
necessarily few. Nature herself is but slightly varied 
and variegated within this sphere. It is only in the cloth- 
ing of her few archetypal forms, that she exhibits the 
pomp, and prodigality, of her luxuriance. It is true that 
Neander's method is uniform. We know beforehand what 
the treatment of each section will be. We know that each 
subject will be handled under the same fixed number of 



AND APPLIED TO HISTORY. 153 

topics and categories; that each mass of material, like 
iron in a rolling mill, will be run through the same num- 
ber and sequence of grooves. But this very rigor in the 
use of one idea, and the prosecution of one plan, imparts, 
to the product resulting from it, an interest for the think- 
ing mind, far higher than any merely aesthetic interest 
can ever be, and what is still more, renders it a far more 
instructive and influential work for the intellect of a 
student, than can be originated on the other method of 
historical composition. It is for this reason, therefore, 
that while the history of Neander has less interest for him 
who is attracted chiefly by the secular aspects of Christi- 
anity, it has all the more for him who knows that its 
spiritual aspects are its distinguishing and essential ones. 
He who sees in Christianity merely or mainly a religion 
or an institute that has exerted a most favorable influence 
upon literature, science, and art ; upon civilization, govern- 
ment, and the physical improvement of mankind ; will be 
dissatisfied with this author's account of it. For Neander 
was but little, too little, interested in these civilizing, and 
intellectual, influences. But he who sees in Christianity, 
first of all and last of all, a moral and spiritual power, 
destined by its Divine Author to regenerate the inmost 
heart of humanity, and hence intended to affect primarily 
the eternal interests of mankind, will find this stern 
aesthetic indifference, and naked but lofty spiritualism of 
the Historian, all the more imposing and impressive. For 
he passes through the pomps and splendors that thicken 
and trail along the march of Christianity, as St. Paul did 
through the temples and sculptures of Athens, or the por- 
ticos and triumphal arches of Rome ; with an eye too in- 
tently fixed upon more unutterable realities and more 
awful splendors, to be attracted, much less dazzled, by 
things seen and temporal. To one who seeks to knoM 
7* 



154 



Christianity in its own living moral nature, with few or 
none of its secular adjuncts, the close and powerful method 
of Neander is exceedingly welcome, and exceedingly sug- 
gestive and fertile. And while the student of Church 
History is never to be a servile recipient of all the views 
of any mind, however learned or contemplative, we think 
it may safely be said, that, from the existing literature in 
this department, no single work can be selected which so 
well deserves as does this, to be made both a resort, and a 
point of departure, for his mind. While examining and 
pondering its contents, the inquirer will find himself, all 
along, in the very heart of Christianity, because the history 
is constructed out of the very idea of Christianity itself; 
that is, in its spirit and by its light. 



§ 2. Evolution distinguished from Creation, and from 
Improvement. 

In the previous section, we have confined ourselves to 
an analysis of the abstract idea of evolution, in order to 
reach the abstract nature of History. As a consequence, 
we have brought into view only the universal characteris- 
tics of an expanding process, paying no regard to those 
particular qualities which are discovered, as soon as we 
begin to examine the several species of history that fall 
under the generic conception. For here, as everywhere, 
the concrete application of a metaphysical idea is of equal 
importance with its abstract enunciation. An a priori 
statement requires to be completed by an ap>osteriori ver- 
ification, in order to obtain scientific value and currency. 
An a priori theory is worthless whenever the thought, in 
the mind, is not found to correspond with the thing, in 
nature. In this instance the theory is no Secopia, no 



AND APPLIED TO HISTORY. 155 

seeing through and seeing around, but remains what it 
was in i;he start, an hypothesis or conjecture. The New- 
tonian theory of gravitation, in the moment of its first 
conception in the mind of the thinker, was purely hypo- 
thetical, and had not the whole subsequent course of as- 
tronomical science been a verification of it would be an 
hypothesis still, only an exploded one. The difference be- 
tween the alchemist's theory of occult qualities, and that 
of a true natural philosophy, does not lie in the employ- 
ment of a different mode of formation in one instance 
from that used in the other, but in the fact that the first 
does not stand the tests of observation and application, 
while the last does. Both are formed on the a priori 
method, but the a posteriori verification destroys in one 
case, and confirms in the other.* 

The principal reason why the department of metaphys- 
ics is in such ill repute with the popular mind, on the 
ground of both real and imaginary deficiencies, lies in the 
fact that it has not in all instances been thoroughly treated. 
The philosopher has been content with conceptions in their 
abstract and universal forms. He has been averse to take 
the second step, and do the last work ; .which is, after 
the idea has been sufficiently enucleated by logical analy- 
sis, to bring it forth from this speculative shape, and ex- 
hibit as a concrete and working truth, or, in the phrase of 
Bacon, u to temper the rigor of the abstraction by the soft- 
ening explanation." This is in reality more difficult to 
accomplish, than to merely follow the laws of logical 
thinking, without any regard to the refractions, and re- 
flections, and modifications, of actual processes. To fol- 
low a pure logical sequence is no greater task for a logical 
mind, than it is for a vigorous body to walk up a flight of 

* See Whewell's History of Inductive Sciences, B. V., C. iv. 



156 THE IDEA OF EVOLUTION DEFINED, 

stairs. The steps themselves, in both instances, perform 
most of the labor. The walker needs only to lift up his 
limbs and put them down, to be lifted upward, fifty or a 
hundred feet, into space, and the logician needs merely 
to follow 7 the connections of an idea, to be carried through 
a very wide and long range of speculation. Hence the 
facility with which a mere logician analyzes ideas into 
their constituent elements, and constructs systems out of 
them. It is more difficult, as we have remarked, to be 
entirely thorough, and follow an idea out into the sphere 
of historical reality, and thus know it in the concrete. 
Had this been done more often by the metaphysical phi- 
losopher, he would have subjected truth to a more exhaus- 
tive examination, that would have precluded those miscon- 
ceptions, which so often come in subsequently to an accu- 
rate a priori analysis and vitiate it. 

The doctrine of evolution, in particular, has undergone 
deterioration, and lost scientific properties, by being con- 
templated exclusively in its abstract form. Neglecting to 
test and clarify it by observation, some theorists in Physics 
come to employ the idea in a sense that is contrary to the 
results of scientific analysis itself, as well as contradicted 
by the whole course of nature. Fastening their gaze upon 
the continuity of the process, they lose sight of its ori- 
gin^ and slide into the notion of an eternal potentiality. 
This necessitates the second absurd notion, of potentiality 
within potentiality, or evolution of heterogeneous germs 
out of homogeneous ones. As, upon this theory, there is 
but one process of evolution from one infinite and eternal 
germ, all the varieties of being must be accounted for by 
evolution. Mind must evolve from matter, life from the 
lifeless, the organic from the inorganic, the animal from 
the vegetable, the rational from the animal, the spiritual 
from the carnal, the holy from the sinful. The process of 



AND APPLIED TO HISTORY. 157 

evolution lias now lost its primitive logical simplicity and 
unity, and becomes a complex and fanciful scheme of 
emanations. The germ is no longer a transparent and 
pure creation from nothing, having its own qualities and 
no others, but an obscure and mixed product from ante- 
cedent germs, and these again from their antecedents, and 
so backward endlessly, with ever increasing vagueness 
and mixture, into the abyss of chaotic being. Now set- 
ting aside the valid objections that spring out of Ethics 
and Religion,* it is plain that an actual questioning of 
Nature for the facts in the case would have preserved 
these theorists from this corruption of the true idea of an 
evolution, and kept them upon the truly scientific posi- 
tion. Nature never exhibits the evolution of one specific 
germ from another, and the simple observation and 
remembrance of this matter of fact would have led the 
wandering theorist to retrace his steps. A verification of 
the abstract conception itself, by an actual reference to 
the organic processes actually going on in nature before 
his eyes, would have reminded him of the scientific truth, 
that mere evolution cannot account for the origin of any 
new thing ; that a germ can only protrude its own latency, 

* That the ancient oriental systems of emanation, and their modern 
counterparts the pantheistic systems, are destructive of the first princi- 
ples and distinctions of Ethics and Religion, is notorious. But that 
these same schemes are ruinous to true Science, is not so often consid- 
ered. Let any one, however, examine the stupendous system of Gnos- 
ticism, that sprung up in the 2d and 3d centuries, and he will be con- 
vinced that such a conglomerate is incompatible with logical coherence 
and scientific self-consistence. Starting from a false fundamental prin- 
ciple, and substituting emanation for creation, every new step must be 
an attempt at adjustment. This introduces still more troublesome and 
unmanageable matter, which, again, calls for new attempts at arrange- 
ment, until an amorphous mass of speculation is aggregated that is 
totally destitute of the homogeneity, concinnity, clearness, and nicety 
of Science. 



158 THE IDEA OF EVOLUTION DEFINED, 

and cannot inlay a foreign one. The very significant mat- 
ter of fact, that one species never expands into another, 
would have reminded him of the truth, which is also 
reached by the " high priori road " of rigorous analysis, 
that though a process of evolution can be accounted for 
out of the latent potentiality at its base, this latter can be 
accounted for only by recurring to the creative power 
of God. Evolution cannot originate its own germ. The 
careful recognition of the fact, that in re rum natiira 
the development of a vegetable seed, even if carried on 
through all the aeons upon aeons of the Gnostic scheme 
or the cycles upon cycles of the geological system, never 
transmutes the homogeneous into the heterogeneous, never 
converts the corn of wheat into the egg of animal life, 
would recall the attention of the speculatist to the self- 
evident proposition that nothing can come forth that has 
never been put in. The seen and acknowledged failure 
to discover any instance in which the passage from the 
animal to the rational soul, from the brute to the man, has 
been effected by the pure evolution of the former, would 
correct the vicious reasoning of the theorizer, and restore 
it to the strictly scientific and necessary statement, that a 
latency of an animal kind cannot by mere expansion be 
converted into one entirely heterogeneous, so as to become 
the basis of a moral and spiritual, as distinguished from an 
animal history.* 

* The definition of Evolution by Herbert Spencer, as "the develop- 
ment of the homogeneous into the heterogeneous," is exactly wrong. 
It is directly contrary to the received definition. An evolution, in the 
historical physics, wholly excludes the heterogeneous. It is a process 
that is entirely pure, and unmixed with foreign elements. The evolu- 
tion of a mustard seed, for example, is simply and only vegetable. 
Should anything mineral or animal, anything heterogeneous, appear in 
the process, the evolution would by this very fact be proved to be 
spurious. This definition, moreover, begs the question in dispute : 



AND APPLIED TO HISTORY. 159 

This same vitiation of true metaphysics, and misappre- 
hension of an abstract conception, is seen also within the 
sphere of mind, and of human history. Theorizers here, 
forgetting the fact of free will, confound the idea of 
development with that of improvement. There is noth- 
ing in the logical conception of an evolving process that 
warrants their assertion, that all movement in the history 
of a self-determining moral agent must of necessity be nor- 
mal and upward. All that is required by the a priori 
definition is, that the process shall be an expanding one, 
but of what species, or from what basis, is still undeter- 
mined. Forgetting the fact of free will, and the possibil- 
ity of defection from law associated with it by the Creator, 
they deal with man as they do with material nature, and 
suppose that to say he is passing through a process of 
development necessarily implies that he is advancing, like 
" the splendor of the grass and the glory of the flower," 
from one degree of excellence to another.* 

the question namely, whether the homogeneous ever does or can devel- 
op into the heterogeneous. To begin with defining evolution to be the 
very process of whose reality the opponent demands proof, is more art- 
ful than scientific. 

* "Evil," says Emerson (Essay on Swedenborg), "is good in the 
making. That pure malignity can exist, is the extreme proposition of 
unbelief. It is not to be entertained by a rational agent ; it is atheism ; 
it is the last profanation. The divine effort is never relaxed ; the car- 
rion in the sun will convert itself to grass and flowers ; and the man, 
though in brothels, or jails, or on gibbets, is on the way to all that is 
good and true." Extremes meet. The denial of the doctrine of human 
apostasy, on the ground that it is dishonorable to man, conducts to the 
denial of man's distinguishing and highest endowment, viz.: his free 
will, and results in degrading human nature to the level of " carrion," 
and " flowers." It is often asked, why G-od permitted sin ? Perhaps it 
was to prove conclusively that man is a self -determining spirit. Cer- 
tain it is, that wherever the fact of the free and guilty fall of man is 
acknowledged, materializing views of man's nature do not prevail, 
while the denial of the reality of moral evil is a characteristic of 
materialism of every grade and school. 



160 THE IDEA OF EVOLUTION DEFINED, 

Here again, the simple observation of the fact staring 
every inquirer in the face, of an abuse of freedom, and a 
consequent false evolution of human nature, would have 
impressed the lesson which a rigorous analysis also 
teaches, viz. : that an evolving process may be downwards, 
as well as upwards ; one of decline and death, as well as 
of rise and bloom. The stubborn fact of an illegitimate 
development going on in the very heart of humanity, and 
covering the whole period of human history, compels the 
theorizer to notice an aspect of the doctrine of evolution 
that he had lost sight of. The application of the abstract 
idea of evolution to what he finds to be a stern matter of 
fact, preserves its scientific purity and precision by pre- 
venting him from surreptitiously throwing out its univer- 
sality and impartiality, whereby it is capable of an appli- 
cation to any process, legitimate or illegitimate, so it be 
an organic sequence, and surreptitiously narrowing it 
down to a particular species of process, viz. : a normal one. 
For .there is no more reason for regarding evolution as 
synonymous with improvement alone, than with de- 
generacy alone. Scientific definitions are wide and uni- 
versal. No particular truth is told, or intended to be, 
when it is asserted that there is a process of development 
going on in the human world. This is granted upon all 
sides. On coming within the sphere of free agency, it is 
necessary, in order to any definite and valuable statement, 
to determine by actual observation what it is that is being 
developed ; whether a primitive germ originated by the 
Creator, or a secondary one originated by the creature, to 
either of which the abstract conception of evolution is 
alike applicable. 

Hence, on coming down into the sphere of the concrete, 
we are obl-ged to notice the varieties of evolution In 
endeavoring to apply the idea whose nature we have 



AND APPLIED TO HISTORY. 161 

analyzed, to the actual career of man on the globe, we 
must take into account the peculiarity of this career. In 
specifying this, we discover the distinctive nature of 
Secular History, and give its definition. 

The ordinary and common history of mankind, as the 
observer in every age sees it going on before his eyes, 
differs from all other histories of which he knows any- 
thing, by being contrary to the primary law of creation. 
All other existences, so far as he knows, are conformed to 
the law of their being, and their evolution is, consequently, 
legitimate and normal. Throughout all material nature, 
there is no liberty to the contrary, and consequently there 
is an inevitable obedience to the creative idea, and an un- 
varying expansion of the original germ. The few mon- 
sters, lusus natures as we call them, are very few, and do 
not affect the species to which they belong. A mal-f ormed 
crystal is an isolated thing, and its formation has no effect 
upon the law and process of crystallization. A body with 
two heads is entirely anomalous and uncommon, and does 
not in the least modify the operation of the general law 
of production. Material nature proceeds undeviatingly, 
because within this sphere there is no possibility of self- 
will. Evolution here is both normal and uniform. 
Hence, the moralist and theologian point to the perfect 
unfolding of the natural world, as an example to be imi- 
tated by the voluntary spirit of man. The highest au- 
thority has set the lilies of the field before us, for our 
deliberate imitation ; and the poet, in his distich, has 
briefly repeated the same truth : " Seekest thou the 
highest, and the greatest % the plants can teach it to 
thee. What they are involuntarily, that be thou volun- 
tarily." * 

And if we pass from material nature into the realm of 
* Schiller, Das Hochste. 



162 THE IDEA OF EVOLUTION DEFINED, 

spiritual existence, we find that, with the exception of 
man and a portion of the angelic hosts, all voluntary 
beings are in allegiance to law, and their development is 
legitimate and normal. For that catastrophe and fall in 
heaven was scarcely a speck upon the infinite azure of 
eternity. The idea of race does not apply to the angel as 
it does to the man. We speak of the angelic host, but 
never of the angelic race.* Hence the apostasy of the 
Son of the Morning and his followers, like the mal-forma- 
tion of a crystal in the material world, was an isolated oc- 
currence, whose effects did not extend beyond itself. 
Each angelic will fell for, and by, itself. Hence the gen- 
eral allegiance of the hierarchies continued, and con- 
tinues,! so that we may say, notwithstanding this instance 
of deviation from the Divine law, that in the heavenly 
world, as in the natural, the evolution and the history are 
legitimate and normal. 

Man then stands alone ; the only unloyal race in the 
universe ; the only species of being which, as a unity and 
a whole, has thrown itself out of the line of its true desti- 
nation, and is running a false career. 

With the possibility and necessary conditions of such a 
catastrophe, we have in this discussion no concern. It is 
sufficient here to postulate its occurrence through the 
abuse of human freedom, by the permissive will and de- 
cree of God. Had, then, the development of man pro- 

* "Non enim sic sunt omnes angeli de uno angelo, quemadmodum 
omnes homines de uno homine." — Anselm, Car Deus Homo, ii. , 21, 22. 

f Far the greater part have kept, I see, 
Their station ; heaven, yet populous, retains 
Number sufficient to possess her realms, 
Though wide, and this high temple to frequent 
With ministeries due, and solemn rites. 

Paradise Lost, vii. , 1 45—1 49. 



AKD APPLIED TO HISTORY. 163 

ceeded from the primary germ and original inlay given in 
creation, it would have been ideal and perfect. All that 
some theorists now say respecting the actual history of 
man would then have been exactly descriptive of that nor- 
mal process. Human nature would then have unfolded 
in all the beauty, and perfect conformity to the creative 
idea, which we have seen to be characteristic of the 
crystal, or the flower. The spontaneous and the natural, 
in human history, would then have been the ideal and the 
perfect. 

But we know, not by an a priori method, but as matter 
of fact, that the development of humanity did not proceed 
from this first and proper point of departure. The crea- 
tive idea, by the Creator's permission, was not realized by 
the free agent. The law of man's creation was not 
obeyed. In the fall of Adam, the original and true his- 
toric germ was crowded out by a second false one. The 
first potential basis of human history, which provided for 
a purer progress and a grander evolution than man now 
can conceive of, was displaced by a second basis, which 
likewise provided for a false evolution, and an awful his- 
tory, if not supernaturally hindered, all along through the 
same endless duration. 

The origination of moral evil by the self-will of man, 
consequently, brings to view another aspect of the idea of 
evolution, and a different application of the doctrine of 
genetic development. This stubborn fact compels the 
speculating mind to acknowledge, what it is prone to lose 
sight of, viz. : that so far as the abstract definition is con- 
cerned, evolution may mean corruption and decline, as 
well as improvement ; that the organic sequences of his- 
tory may be those of decay and death, as w r ell as those of 
bloom and life. For it displays, for his examination, 
another kind of germ, besides that one created by the 



164; THE IDEA OF EVOLUTION DEFINED, 

Creator, and which He pronounced " good." It shows 
him a very different potentiality, from that original moral 
perfection with which humanity was once endowed. It 
enables him to understand something of the meaning of 
free will, and yet more, something of the mystery of self- 
will. For that misapprehension of the abstract idea of 
evolution, whereby it is contracted down from its wide 
universality of meaning and applicability to all organic 
processes whatsoever, and limited to the single particular 
j^rocess of improvement, arises from overlooking the func- 
tions and operations of free agency, which play such a 
part in the history of Man, and introduce such changes 
and varieties into it. The philosopher, at this point, as at 
many others, needs the instruction of the theologian. He 
needs to be reminded by his scientific co-laborer, that the 
moral power of self-determination is totally different from 
a physical force, and can cause such alterations and catas- 
trophes within the moral world as never appear in the 
world of material nature, and hence that when he comes 
into this sphere, he must not be surprised if he finds 
archetypes departed from, and glorious ideals unrealized. 
Theology reminds philosophy of the fact, that although 
the natural and secular man is mentally rational, he is not 
morally so ; that though the eternal truths of right have 
been inlaid in his reason, by the act of his Creator, they 
have been expelled from his will by an act of his own. 
The theorist, contemplating man's mental constitution, 
finds him to be possessed of all the truths of reason. 
These truths are necessary, and, in their own nature, enti- 
tled to an universal dominion. Hence he hastily con- 
cludes, that they must, of themselves, prevail in the his- 
tory of any being in whose very mental structure they are 
so thoroughly inwoven. The speculative maxim, " truth 
is mighty, and must prevail," carries him to the practical 



AND APPLIED TO HISTORY. 165 

conclusion, that a rational being must inevitably act out 
his rationality, and be rational in all respects. But the 
theorist forgets that the realization of a truth, in life and 
conduct, can proceed only from the active and emotive 
side of man. The heart and will are the vitality of the 
human soul, and hence, the proper seat of growth and 
evolution within it.* We have already, by a rigorous 
definition, evinced that a process of evolution is an or- 
ganic and consequently a thoroughly vital one. Of which- 
ever species it be, be it development in perfection or 
development in corruption, be it a living life or a living 
death, as a connected and organic process, it must go on 
in the faculties of feeling and will, or not at all. Evolu- 
tion, be it true or false, is the result of an active princi- 
ple. If, therefore, the truths of reason and righteousness 
are not wrought into the voluntary part of man, it matters 
not how thoroughly they may have been elaborated by 
the Creator's act, into the stationary intellectual part of 
him. For there can be no flexible expansion of a truth of 
reason or revelation, unless it has been absorbed and as- 
similated into the moral and voluntary nature. Remain- 
ing in its rigid intellectual form, in the pure theoretic 
reason of man, a doctrine of natural or of revealed reli- 
gion has no more power of pliantly unfolding into feeling 
and conduct, than a stone has of turning into vegetable 
matter, merely because it has been caught and held in the 
fork of a rapidly growing tree. The error of the theorist, 

* It is a maxim of the lynx-eyed Aristotle, that ' ' mere intellect moves 
nothing ; " tiiavoih. 5' avrr] ovSev Kivei. (Ethics, vi., 5). That radical 
movement and transformation must proceed from the practical, in dis- 
tinction from the theoretic, side of human nature, is the teaching- of 
this whole paragraph, as well as of others, in this system of ethics. 
The theological doctrine, that no real moral change can be brought 
about in humanity, but by the renewal of the will, will suggest itself to 
the reader in this connection. 



166 THE IDEA OF EVOLUTION DEFINED, 

who argues from the ideal to the actual, and affirms the 
necessary normal development of human nature, merely 
because it contains within itself the rule and law by which 
it ought to develop ; this error of regarding evolution as 
the synonyme of improvement, arises from overlooking the 
difference between the legislative and the executive, the 
constitutional and the voluntary, the mental and the moral.* 
A very considerable degree of moral light may exist, 
without the least degree of moral life. The rise of a re- 
spectable system of natural theology in pagan Greece and 
Rome, is no more a proof of a normal, or even an im- 
proving evolution of human nature in that age and clime, 
than the clearest convictions of reason, and the most poig- 
nant reproaches of conscience in an individual, are proofs 
that his inward moral life is heavenly and heavenward. 
Indeed, it is only a very loose and inadequate apprehen- 
sion of the idea of evolution, that can find in that wholly 
speculative movement of the ancient philosophic mind, 
which, moreover, even in this form, was confined to a very 
few of the more thoughtful sages, and never exerted -any 
influence upon the individual and social life of the Greek 
and Roman populations, — it is, we say, a very meagre and 
narrow conception of a very pregnant and fertile idea 
that can find, in such a restricted phenomenon, the char- 
acteristics of a great diffusive organic process, which 
moulds human society internally, and from the centre. 
Can any candid mind say that that " moral philosophy," 
which, as Bacon says, "was the heathen divinity," sus- 
tained the same inward relation to heathendom that Chris- 
tianity does to Christendom ; that the system of Socrates 
was the principle of moral life for any portion of an- 

* " Conscience," remarks Ullmann ( Sinlessness of Jesus, p. 32), "is 
not so much productive as receptive, not so much originative as ac- 
quiescent." 



AND APPLIED TO HISTORY. 167 

tiqnitj, as the system of Christ has been for the Church 
in all ages ? On the contrary, was not the truth, as St 
Paul affirms, held down in unrighteousness, and was not 
the actual spontaneous development of the old world as 
contrary to the doctrines of natural as of revealed re- 
ligion % 

And, so far as the individual examples of pagan virtue 
are concerned, we are willing to leave the decision of the 
question to themselves, whether the natural religion, which 
they apprehended in their reason and conscience, had so 
passed into their affections and will, and had such a vital 
control over their heart and character, as to constitute a 
normal development of human nature in their case. 
Head Plato, and find as full a confession, prompted by a 
personal consciousness, of the corruption and degeneracy 
of human nature, as ever came from uninstructed lips. 
Ask the wisest of heathen, if the principles of reason 
and righteousness, which lay in such clear outline before 
his mind's eye, constituted the life of his soul ; and hear 
the answer, that however it may have been with him in 
a pre-existence of which he dreamed, and however it 
might be with him in a future world, of which he knew 
nothing with certainty, the existing inward life, the 
present character, and the actual on-going development, 
was certainly contrary to the Beautiful, the True, and the 
Good. 

The result, then, of the investigation in this section, is 
the further distinction of the idea of evolution from that 
of improvement, and the definition of Secular History as 
an abnormal but organic process. We had previously 
distinguished evolution from creation, and now this second 
limitation brings us round to an exhaustive definition of an 
idea which is probably more potent than any other, in 
forming and fixing the intellectual methods of the present 



168 THE IDEA OF EVOLUTION DEFINED, 

generation of educated men. The history of the word is 
instructive. The loose and unscientific use of this single 
term has done as much as any other single cause, to intro- 
duce error into current theories of nature, of man, and of 
human history. The remedy is not to be found in the 
rejection of either the conception or the term, but in a 
rigorous and scientific treatment of the idea itself, by 
which it is made to yield up its true and exact meaning ; 
whereby it shall be fitted to apply equally to Sacred and 
to Profane History, to pure and to corrupt evolutions, to 
historic processes of bloom and beauty and perfection, and 
to historic processes of decline, decay and ruin. The 
downward tendencies of human nature, which constitute 
the substance of Secular as distinguished from Christian 
History ; the acknowledged deterioration of languages, 
literatures, religions, arts, sciences, and civilizations; the 
slow and sure decay of national vigor, and return to bar- 
barism ; the unvarying decline from public virtue to pub- 
lic voluptuousness; in short, the entire history of man, so 
far as he is outside of supernatural influences, and un- 
affected by the intervention of his original Creator, though 
it is a self-determined and responsible process, is yet, in 
every part and particle, as organically connected, and as 
strict an evolution, as is that other upward tendency, 
started in the Christian Church, and ended in the eternal 
state, by which this same humanity is being restored to 
the heights whence it fell. 

But while the course of evolution in Secular or Profane 
History presupposes a potential basis from which it pro- 
ceeds, the all-important fact must be noticed, and remem- 
bered, that this is a secondary basis, and not a primary one, 
and that the originating author of this basis is t\\Q finite^ 
and not the infinite will. Under and within the permis- 
sive decree of God, sin is man's creation * he makes it 



AND APPLIED TO HISTOKY. 169 

out of nothing.* For the origin of moral evil cannot be 
accounted for, by the evolution of something already in 
existence, any more than the origin of matter can be.. 
Original righteousness, developed never so long and in- 
tensely, will never be transmuted into original sin. The 
passage, from one to the other, must be by an absolutely 
originant act of self-will, which act, subject only to the 
limitation and condition above-mentioned, of the permis- 
sion of the Supreme Being, is strictly creative from noth- 
ing. The origin of sin is the origination of a new historic 
germ, and not the unfolding or modification of an old 
one; and hence the necessity of a creating, in distinction 
from an evolving force, such as is denoted by the possi- 

* The analogy between the origination of matter or of mind from 
nothing, by Almighty God, and the origination of sin from nothing, by 
the finite will, does not, of course, hold good in every respect. No finite 
being can create in the strict and ordinary sense of originating a new 
substance, either material or spiritual. But sin is not a substance, and 
in saying that man creates sin, it is only meant that he alone is the real 
and true author of it. He is its first cause. He is not necessitated to 
originate it, he does not make it out of antecedent sin, but begins 
it de novo and absolutely. The energy of the finite will in the first act 
of sin resembles that of the infinite will in creation proper, in that the 
product resulting is in each instance ex nihilo. In this sense sin is 
man's creation. " Sin and evil," says Athanasius (Fourth Oration against 
the Arians), ' ' are none of God's creatures ; neither are they as old as his 
creatures ; nor are they in all his creatures. It is the doctrine and judg- 
ment of the Christian Church, in opposition to the folly of the Manichaean 
hypothesis, that nothing of sin or evil is from God as its author, or in God 
as its subject ; that it had no place among the works of the six days' crea- 
tion. Unhappy man found out a way to make something (as he thought) 
out of nothing, when he ushered sin and disobedience into the world. He 
made even gods out of emptiness and nothing." Similarly Coleridge 
(Table Talk, May 1, 1830), remarks that tl a fall of some sort or other, 
the creation, as it were, of the non-absolute, is the fundamental postu- 
late of the moral history of man. Without this hypothesis, man is 
unintelligible ; with it every phenomenon is explicable. The mystery 
itself is too profound for human insight. " 
8 



170 THE IDEA OF EVOLUTION DEFINED, 

hilitas peccandi attributed by the theologian to the will of 
the imf alien Adam. Supposing, then, the first origina- 
tion of moral evil to be carefully referred to the abuse of 
human freedom, and keeping the process of its evolution 
within the same sphere of self-will in which it took its 
first start, we may then say, that moral evil undergoes a 
development, as truly as anything else that belongs to the 
history of man. If any one doubts whether this term, so 
often applied only in a good sense as to be for the popu- 
lar mind the synonyme of normal progress, is properly 
applicable to a process like that of human sinfulness, he 
needs only to try this process by the tests that are discrim- 
inated in the metaphysical analysis of the conception. He 
will find that human corruption and decline has been as 
organic a sequence from an original centre, as is to be 
found in the realm of matter itself ; that it exhibits all the 
characteristics of an evolution : the necessary and natural 
connection of elements and properties, their action and 
reaction, the sameness of generic principle in all the 
individual varieties, and the unceasing motion of a con- 
stant expansion. 

The same rigorous application of the doctrine of evolu- 
tion, moreover, compels us to the further position, that 
the reversal of this illegitimate and false process which is 
going on in humanity also necessitates a creative power. 
For no process of mere and strict evolution can go behind 
itself, and alter the base from which it proceeds. Radical 
changes cannot be produced in this manner. There must 
be an originant energy, in order to these. The passage 
from holiness to sin, we have already noticed, cannot be 
accounted for by the doctrine of evolution, and neither 
can the passage from sin to holiness be explained by it. 
The expulsion of the false germ, and the re-introduction 
of the true one, must be accomplished by an agency that 



AND APPLIED TO HISTOEY. 171 

is creative, in distinction from one that is merely expan- 
sive. An evolution is by its very nature and definition self- 
perpetnating, until an agency specifically different from 
its own interferes. A germ of one kind cannot originate 
a germ of a different kind, and consequently there is no 
natural and germinant passage from an illegitimate to a 
legitimate potentiality in human history, any more than 
there is from a vegetable to an animal species. The pas- 
sage, if there be one, must be supernatural : i. e., the work 
of a creative, in distinction from an educing agency, and 
by an instantaneous act, in distinction from a gradual pro- 
cess. 

Secular history is therefore separated from Christian 
by a chasm over which it cannot pass, except by the in- 
tervention of the Creator.* The abuse of human freedom 

* The query may arise in this connection, whether this creative 
energy may not be in the fallen finite will itself, and thus there be no 
absolute necessity of the intervention of the infinite Spirit, and employ- 
ment of special Divine efficiency. If the human will was possessed, 
before its defection from law, of a power to create moral evil, why is it 
not possessed, since its fall, of a power to create moral good ? The 
objections to this are the following. (1) The affirmation of such a 
power rests, solely, upon an a priori foundation. There is no a posteriori 
test, "and verification, that corroborates it. Fallen man is not conscious 
of such an originant energy to good, though he is at times conscious of 
its lack ; and that he never exerted it, is a well-established fact. This 
power then to originate, in distinction from develop and cultivate, 
holiness, if attributed to the sinful will at all, must be attributed upon 
other grounds than psychological and practical ones. But metaphysics 
unsupported by psychology, we have seen, must be conjectural merely, 
and consequently of a spurious order. An abstract theory that is 
destitute of its concrete correspondent in the world of actual experi- 
ence, like the Alchemist's hypothesis of oceult qualities, is destitute of 
scientific value. Science demands a matching of the one-half with its 
other half; of the a priori with the a posteriori. If such be the real 
relation of these two intellectual methods to each other, it follows that 
a position like the one in question, which can get its support from only 
one of them, and this, the least practical of the two, should be rejected. 



172 THE IDEA OF EVOLUTION DEFINED, 

allows of no self-remedy. The new birth of the human 
spirit and the new historic process resting upon it cannot, 
from the very nature of the case and the very terms of the 
statement, be an evolution of the apostate man. To affirm 
this would be to confound evolution with creation. A clear 
and distinct conception, consequently, of the nature of 
Secular History, guides the mind inevitably to the doc- 
trine and fact of Revelation, if a radical change is to be 
introduced. No new order of history can possibly begin, 
if the existing movement and evolution are simply left to 
themselves. An absolutely originant and creative power 

(2) But in the second place, even if the position in question be held as 
a pure abstraction, by a dead lift of the intellect, and without any 
experimental corroboration, it then follows from it that the finite will 
can be the absolute and sole author of holiness, as it is of sin, and that, 
consequently, it can establish for itself an absolute meritoriousness 
before G-od, as it can and has an absolute guiltiness. Ifc confessedly has 
the power of creating moral evil out of nothing, without the influence 
and co-operation of the Divine Spirit, so that its demerit is absolute, 
and its damnation eternal, in case it uses this power; and if it is capable 
of originating moral good, in the same unassisted manner, then a cor- 
respondent absoluteness of merit would be established upon this side. 
But no finite will, not even that of the unfallen angels, can take the 
total merit of holiness to itself, as the fallen will must take the total 
demerit of sinfulness. It is only on the side of moral evil, that the will 
of the creature can act without influence and assistance from the Creator, 
because it is only on this side that it can act in opposition to Him. 
While, therefore, man by the permission of the Supreme, and not with- 
out it, can abuse his free agency, and establish a self-derived, and there- 
fore absolute criminality, he can never, by the use of free agency, 
establish a self -derived, and therefore absolute worthiness. If, then, the 
very relationship of all moral good to the Holy One is that of depen- 
dence, to such a degree that the doctrine of its absolute origination, or 
creation from nothing, is inapplicable even to the unfallen finite spirit, 
much more must this doctrine be excluded, in the instance of the 
apostate will. The theory of a strictly originant energy in the soul of 
man can, consequently, apply only to moral evil. All holiness in the 
man or angel is derived from G-od ; but all sin is self-originated by the 
creature. 



AND APPLIED TO HISTORY. 173 

must be called in to reverse the process, and give it an 
upward instead of a downward direction. 



§ 3. The nature and definition of Church History. 

In explaining and applying the idea of evolution, we 
have arrived at the nature of History in .the abstract, and 
of that specific concrete form which is denominated Pro- 
fane or Secular. We have now to make a third applica- 
tion of the idea to the history of Christianity. 

Christian or Church History we define to be the restor- 
ing of the true development of the human spirit, by the 
supernatural agency of its Creator. The doctrine of evo- 
lution is now to be applied to that gradual process of re- 
covery from the apostasy of his will, which regenerated 
man is passing through, here on earth, as a member of the 
spiritual kingdom of Christ. We shall find this to be a 
series, and sequence, as organic as any that have passed 
before our review, or that we can conceive of. The foun- 
der of Christianity Himself so describes it, when he says 
that " the kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard 
seed which a man took, and sowed in his field ; which 
indeed is the least of all seeds : but when it is grown it is 
the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the 
birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof ; " 
when He says, again, that " the kingdom of heaven is like 
unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures 
of meal, till the whole was leavened." * In these parables, 
two of the most thorough and inward processes in nature, 
viz. : those of germination and fermentation, are chosen 
by our Lord to indicate the real nature of his religion. 

* Matthew xiii. 31-33. 



174 



And no one can study the illustrations which He sc 
frequently employs in order to give a clear conception of 
his religion as it works in the individual soul, and in the 
w T orld at large, without being convinced that it is, in its 
own sphere and kind, as much of the nature of a living 
principle as the breath of life in the nostrils. For these 
illustrations are almost entirely drawn from the world of 
animated nature, and thereby evince that the Author of 
nature and of grace knows that the vitality of the one 
best symbolizes and explains the vitality of the other. 

But if it was of the first importance, in the previous 
sections, to direct attention to the fact that the power 
which originates the germ of any process is a creative one, 
it is certainly so in the present instance. This free and 
fresh unfolding of the Christian life, in the midst of the de- 
cadent processes of Secular History, as was indicated in the 
close of the last section, cannot be accounted for by any 
latency lying undeveloped in the heart of the secular man. 
Mere expansion, forever and for evermore, would only dis- 
play a more thoroughly intense and concentrated corrup- 
tion of human nature. We are, consequently, once more 
driven to the Supernatural and Divine, if any radical 
change in humanity, and any new species of history, is to 
be introduced. As Secular History is the evolution of the 
fallen nature of man left to its own spontaneity, so Chris- 
tian History is the evolution of his regenerated nature, 
under the continued influence of the power that first and 
instantaneously effected the change. The first question, 
consequently, that is to be answered here, relates to this 
power itself. What, then, is that supernatural Power, 
which begins, carries forward, and perfects that new pro- 
cess of development in human nature which constitutes 
the sum and substance of Church History ? In answering 
this question, we describe, by implication, the nature of 



AND APPLIED TO HISTORY. 175 

this species of human History, and obtain a clew to the 
whole process itself. 

Speaking generally, the power which begins, continues, 
and completes the restoration of the true evolution of 
humanity, is Divine Revelation. The term is taken in 
its most comprehensive meaning, to denote the entire 
special communication which God has made to man. In 
this generic form, it subdivides into two main branches: 
(1) The revelation of Truth ; (2) The dispensation of the 
Spirit. 

From the fall in Eden, down to the death of the last of 
the Apostles, God, through the medium of inspiration, at 
sundry times and in divers manners, has imparted to the 
mind of man a body of knowledge, the purpose of which 
is to enlighten his darkened understanding respecting his 
origin, fall, actual character, religious necessities and the 
divine method of meeting them. This revealed truth has 
been preserved by special providence, and is now, an out- 
ward, fixed, written revelation. 

Again, parallel with this species of Divine communi- 
cation, another has been made, viz. : a dispensation of di- 
rect spiritual influence. The purpose of this second 
form of the Divine manifestation, is to renew and sanctify 
the human soul. The function of the first is to enlighten, 
as that of the second is to enliven. These two forms of 
God's supernatural self-revelation are co-ordinate, and 
necessary to each other's success ; and hence the dispensa- 
tion of spiritual influence has accompanied that of truth, 
in all ages of the Church from the very beginning. For 
although the degree and extent of this influence was 
greatly augmented after the ascension of Christ, yet it 
would be as incorrect to affirm that the kind, the fact itself 
of direct divine efficiency upon the human soul, did not exist 
in the Patriarchal and Jewish churches, as it would to assert 



176 THE IDEA OF EVOLUTION DEFINED, 

that there was no revelation of truth from God, previous 
to the New Testament economy, because the disclosures 
of this latter were so much fuller than those of its ante- 
cedent. 

Revelation, then, in this generic sense, is a unity and a 
continuity. So far as it is a communication of Truth, it 
began with the promise in Eden, and ended with the glow- 
ing invitation of the beloved disciple of the Incarnate 
Word, who was also the Jehovah of the Patriarchs and 
Prophets, addressed to all men without distinction, to take 
the water of life freely. So far as it is a communication 
of the Spirit, it commenced with the regeneration of the 
fallen pair, and has continued, through all ages, to be the 
efficient agency in applying the written revelation. Un- 
like the communication of the Word, that of the Spirit 
must continue to go on until the end of the world ; and 
yet the permanent co-ordination and mutual necessity of 
each will be seen in the fact, that the finished revelation 
of Truth, the concluded canon of Scripture, will be em- 
ployed to the end of time, by the Holy Ghost, as his own 
and only instrument of human renovation. 

We have, then, in this total .Revelation from God, the 
originant creative power in Church History. The founda- 
tion of Secular History is the human mind and human 
power, under the merely ordinary sustaining agency of 
Divine Providence ; that of Christian History is the Divine 
mind and Divine power exerting themselves with an extra- 
ordinary and creative energy. Supernatural communica- 
tion from the Deity is the great objective force in this 
species of human History ; the foundation and principle 
of the restored normal evolution of humanity. This re- 
velation of Himself on the part of God, entering into the 
midst and mass of mankind, selects out a portion by a 
sovereign act, regenerates and moulds it into a body by 



AND APPLIED TO HISTORY. 177 

itself, separate from the world though existing in it.* 
This body is therefore as truly organized, and organic, as 
that larger body which is denominated the race, or that 
smaller body which is denominated the state. It exhibits 
a process possessing all the properties of an expanding 
germ, and has a history that is vitally connected, and 
reciprocally related, from beginning to end. 

We pass, now, to consider the characteristics of this 
process of restoring the true development of human nature, 
in order to obtain a yet fuller apprehension of the distinc- 
tive peculiarities of Church History. 

1. Observe, first, that the development of regenerate 
man here upon earth is only iw.jperfectly normal. It 
differs from what it would have been had human nature 
unfolded from the original germ, without any fall or de- 
viation from the prescribed career, by exhibiting a mix- 
ture of true and false elements. The church on earth is 
not perfect. Its career contains sections of corruption, 
decay, decline ; characteristics that cannot belong to a 
perfect process ; elements that do not properly belong to 
Church History, considering the perfection of the germ 
from which it proceeds. For inasmuch as the creative 
force in this instance is the perfect Revelation of God, the 
evolution that proceeds should, upon abstract principles, 
be an entirely perfect one also. Since the inward life is 
supernatural and divine, the manifestation ought to be so 

* The fall of man is generic, and hence all men are fallen ; the re- 
demption of man is individual, and electing, and consequently only a 
portion are saved. A catastrophe, like spiritual apostasy, occurring at 
a point in human history when humanity was a unit and a unity, affects 
the whole indiscriminately and without exception ; but when man has 
passed out of this form of existence, into that of a series and succession 
of individuals, it is plain that the principle of individualism must 
govern his restoration, and that redemption, consequently, cannot be 
generic and universal. 



178 THE IDEA OF EVOLUTION DEFINED, 

likewise, and entirely unmixed with foreign and false 
elements. 

But the actual history of the Church does not thus 
exactly conform to this its ideal. It only approximates 
to it, and hence the restoring of the true development of 
humanity is not that pure and spotless process which the 
history of man was originally intended to exhibit, and 
which it would have presented had the first divinely de- 
signed unfolding taken place. The history of the Chris- 
tian Church, though vastly different from that of the 
secular world, though different in kind from it, is by no 
means that perfectly serene and beautiful evolution whicfe 
is going on in the heavenly world. 

Church History, consequently, as we actually find it, 
exhibits a complex appearance, a double movement. It 
is both the expansion of a true, and the destruction of a 
false evolution. As, in the instance of the individual 
Christian, the career consists of a double activity, the 
living unto righteousness and the dying unto sin, so in the 
instance of the Church, the entire history consists of the 
growth of the spiritual and holy, and the resistance of 
the natural and sinful. The fight between the flesh and 
the spirit, in the single believer, is both a part and a sym- 
bol of that great contest between two opposing principles 
which constitutes the charm of Church History, and ren- 
ders it, for the contemplative mind, by far the most inter- 
esting, as it is the most important part of the Universal 
History of man on the globe. 

Hence, although we pass into the sphere of the Super- 
natural, into the midst of supernatural ideas, germs, and 
forces, on passing from Secular to Christian History, we 
yet by no means go into a world of calm. We enter a world 
of thicker moral storm, and of hotter mental conflict, than 
is to be found in any section, or in the whole range of 



AND APPLIED TO HISTORY. 179 

Secular History. But there is this great difference : the 
storm is destined to become an eternal calm, and the con- 
flict to end in an eternal triumph. This complexity in the 
process is destined to become a simple unity, and this 
antagonism a perfect harmony. The dualism in the now 
imperfectly normal history is ultimately to vanish, and 
God is to be all in all. But so long as the Church is mili- 
tant, and until it enters upon its eternal heavenly career, 
it cannot exhibit that unmixed and pure process of holy 
life and growth which the history of man was originally 
intended to be. The secondary restoring of a normal de- 
velopment is not, like the primary unfolding, a tranquil 
and unhindered process ; and this is the difference be- 
tween the history of an unfallen, and that of a regenerate 
spirit. 

2. Notice, in the second place, that the development in 
Church History is not symmetrical. We see the same 
lack of entire harmony in the life of the Church that we 
do in that of the individual believer. No Christian bio- 
graphy exhibits a perfect proportion in the features of the 
religious character, or a perfect blending of all the ele- 
ments of the Christian experience. The man is either too 
contemplative, or too practical, too vehement, or too tran- 
quil. There is but one individual religious life that is 
completely symmetrical, and that is the life of the Divine 
founder and exemplar of Christianity. There are, indeed, 
different degrees of approximation to this ideal symmetry. 
Some characters are much more proportionate and beauti- 
ful than others, but there is not a single one of them all 
that is so exactly conformed to the Divine model as to be 
an exact reproduction of it. Ullmann speaks of a point 
in religion, beyond which any further improvement is not 
only impossible but inconceivable. He describes it, as 
being that completed oneness of the human &oul with God, 



180 THE IDEA OF EVOLUTION DEFINED, 

in which the former is determined in all its movements, 
and moulded in all its experiences, by the latter, and yet 
feels that this determination and moulding by the Divine 
is no pantheistic absorption, nor external compulsion, but 
its own most free and personal self-determination, and 
self -formation.* But no Christian biography discloses 
such a perfect Christian consciousness as this. The holiest 
saints on earth complain of inward conflict and an interest 
separate from God, mourn over a part of their experience 
as that of indwelling sin, and confess that even on the 
holy side there is too much that is ill-balanced, and dispro- 
portionate. Not one of them can apply to himself in their 
highest unqualified sense these words of St. Paul, " I live, 
and yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." Not one of them 
has been a perfect representative, in his earthly life, as he 
will be in his heavenly, of the symmetrical holiness of 
Jesus Christ. Precisely the same is seen in the larger 
sphere of the Church ; for the individual life is the 
miniature of the general, the microcosm mirrors the 
macrocosm. As we trace the historic development along 
down the ages and generations of believers, we find the 
same greater or less approximation to symmetry, but never 
absolute proportion. 

If we look at the history of Christianity upon its prac' 
tical side, we find it an imperfectly symmetrical process. 
There are indications in the Apostolic epistles themselves, 
that the gushing love and glowing zeal of the Apostolic 
Church sometimes passed over into an extreme that in- 
jured the experience. The strong side of the character of 
the early Christians is their vivid life and feeling, and not 
a discriminating knowledge of the Christian system, or of 
human nature at large. They apprehended truth chiefly 

* Studien und Kritiken, 1840. p. 48. 



AND APPLIED TO HISTORY. 181 

in the way of feeling and experience, and expected to find 
their own warm affection for it in every one who professed 
discipleship. Hence their liability to be deceived by 
false teachers, and their readiness to be led astray by false 
doctrine ; traits to which the Apostolic epistles often 
allude, and against which they seek to guard by a more 
thorough instruction of this glowing love, and cautious 
guidance of this ardent zeal. Paul, speaking to the 
Roman Church of those who by good words and fair 
speeches would deceive the hearts of the simple (a/cd/cwv, 
the artless and guileless good), adds, " I would have you 
wise unto that which is good, and simple concerning 
evil."* In writing to the Corinthian church, he enjoins 
it upon them not to be children in understanding ; in 
malice they might be children, utterly unacquainted with 
any such thing, but in understanding they must be men.f 
The frequent warnings against false teachers and doctrine 
in the epistles of John we need not specify. So liable 
was the guileless simplicity and pure love of the Apostolic 
church to be imposed upon ; so defective was this first 
form of the Christian experience on the side of knowledge ; 
that the Head of the church made up for the deficiency, 
and protected his people by a special charism or miracu- 
lous gift, viz. : the power of discerning spirits, of reading 
the inward and real character of pretended teachers of 
Christianity. 

When we pass from this first age to a succeeding one, 
like that between Constantine and Hildebrand, or, still 
more, like that between Hildebrand and the Reformation, 
we find the Christian character defective in just the oppo- 
site respect. Speaking comparatively, as we always must 
when comparing historic periods with each other, we may 

* Romans, xvi. 18, 19. 
f 1 Corinthians, xiv. 20. 



182 THE IDEA OF EVOLUTION DEFINED, 

say that the simplicity and love have been lost in the 
extreme of knowledge and discrimination. The adoption 
of Christianity by the temporal power secularized it, 
and while the first Christians were too ignorant of men 
and things, the Grecian-Roman and the Roman Catholic 
Churches knew them too well for the guilelessness and 
simple love of a symmetrical Christian character. They 
obeyed the first half of our Lord's injunction, but not the 
last. They were wise as serpents, but were not harmless 
as cloves. 

If again we look at the historical development of Chris- 
tianity on the theoretic side as a system of doctrines, we 
find the same defect in the process. Some ages under- 
value knowledge altogether, and exhibit little or no scien- 
tific interest of any kind. Others are almost exclusively 
speculative. It is as impossible to find an age, as it is an 
individual, in whom yvaxris and 7r/crTt?, light and life, 
knowledge and feeling, are mingled in exact proportions. 
Hence the whole series of periods and ages contains more 
of the lineaments of a perfect symmetry than any single 
one of them does, and the full idea of Christianity approx- 
imates nearer to a full embodiment in the Church Univer- 
sal than in any particular branch of it. 

This, therefore, is a proper place to allude to the error 
of selecting some one ecclesiastical period as the model 
for all time, and some one church as the ideal for all 
churches. It is a false view of history that would set up 
the church of the two centuries preceding and the two 
centuries following the Nicene council, as that one partic- 
ular section by which the church of the present and the 
future should form itself. The attempt of the Oxford 
party in the English church to revive Nicene Christianity 
as the normal type was utterly unhistoric as well as irra- 
tional. That period undoubtedly had its excellences, and 



AND APPLIED TO HISTORY. 183 

just as undoubtedly its defects. Its Christianity lacked a 
perfect symmetry. It can, therefore, furnish only some 
features that are to be imitated, and perpetuated, by the 
church of the present, and the church of the future. Its 
determined opposition to heretical conceptions, and its 
comparatively vigorous missionary spirit, are two charac- 
teristics of this period that deserve to be reproduced in 
all coming time. The church, in this pantheistic and 
rationalistic age, should keep fast hold of those statements 
of the doctrine of the Trinity, and of the Person of 
Christ, which had their origin in this period. The church 
in this and in every age should retain the substance of 
those profound anthropological views which were the 
result of the great controversy between Augustine and 
Pelagius. But surely no mind that has any just concep- 
tion of the spiritual nature of Christianity can desire that 
such views of prelacy and primacy, of celibacy and mo- 
nasticism, of the efficacy of the sacraments in connection 
with the meritoriousness of good works, as prevailed in 
this patristic period, should be recommended to the church 
in all time for servile reception. He who follows the his- 
tory of the Christian Religion from its beginning down to 
the present will not go the Mcene period for the most 
accurate statement of the doctrine of justification by 
faith, or for the most scriptural conceptions of the nature 
of Christian virtue, and of ecclesiastical polity. He 
knows of other periods whose more special and successful 
function it was to unfold these latter doctrines, as it was 
that of the Nicene period to construct the doctrines of 
Theology and Christology. 

As really, though not equally, is it an error to set up 
the Apostolic Church as the model for all time. That 
brotherly affection, and that tender yet deathless love 
towards the Redeemer, must be a model for all ages, and 



184 THE IDEA OF EVOLUTION DEFINED, 

will probably never be excelled by any generation of 
Christians. But the conflict which Christianity has to 
wage with a cultivated skepticism and a subtle heresy, and 
that prudent discrimination which is needed in some 
emergencies to protect the earthly interests of the church, 
call for a development of Christianity in an intellectual 
and scientific direction of which we see little or nothing 
in the Apostolic brotherhood.* The primitive Christians 
were in reality the pupils and children of the apostles, 
who answered all their questions, relieved all their doubts, 
and fought all their intellectual conflicts for them. But 
the apostles were an order of men which has not been 
perpetuated, to be the guardians and instructors of the 
church in every emergency. Their writings are left, it is 
true, but how often would even the didactic and thought- 
ful theologian, or the learned but perplexed council or 
assembly, after all its diligent study of these writings, 
have gladly betaken themselves, like the church at Cor- 
inth or Rome when in difficulty, to the inspired mind of 
a living apostle, for a further communication specially 
adapted to the case in hand. This age of pupilage could 
not continue, and therefore it cannot be set forth, any 
more than any other one, as the model to which all after 
ages are to be conformed in every respect. 

In short, the student of the whole course of historical 
development will seek to make up for the want of that 
symmetry which is not to be found in any one section, by 
combining excellences that are found in each, and reject- 
ing the defects that are found in all. For only in the 

* This Church might say, in reference to scientific statements of the 
doctrines of Script'ure, as the unlettered woman spoken of in Chalmers' 
memoirs did when asked some theological questions respecting the per- 
son of the Redeemer, on her examination for admission to the church: 
"I cannot describe him, but I would die for him." 



AND APPLIED TO HISTORY. 185 

career of the church as a whole, does he find the nearest 
approximation to that church " without spot or wrinkle," 
spoken of in Scripture, and of which Divine Revelation is 
the originating power and perfecting principle. 

3. Notice, in the third place, that the development in 
Church History is not uniform in every part. This dupli- 
city in the restoring process, of which we have spoken, 
hinders the movement. If there were only a single divine 
principle, and no remainders of a sinful human one, in 
the regenerated soul, the entire career of the Christian 
Church, would be one uninterrupted onward motion, one 
continual triumph of truth on the earth. But the religious 
life is enfeebled, and diminished, by the carnal and secu- 
lar, in both the individual, and the church. In one age 
Christianity is vigorous, and its rapid extension into pagan 
regions is the consequence. A succeeding age presents 
the melancholy spectacle of deca} T and decline in these 
parent churches, and, perhaps, the beginning of the same 
process in the newly-formed societies. Northern Africa 
from the second to the fifth century was the seat of a very 
vigorous religion, both in practical and speculative 
respects. Tertullian, Origen, and Augustine represent a 
Christianity as influential as any that lies back of the Re- 
formation. But these North African churches disappear 
from Christendom with the suddenness of the lost Pleiad 
from the sky, and from the time of the Mohammedan in- 
vasion to the present that whole region has no place in 
Church History. Such a phenomenon as this cannot be 
accounted for by external causes. Terrible as the Saracen 
invasion was, a civilization and culture resting upon a 
sound and healthy Christianity in Northern Africa would 
have stopped and beaten back the Saracen, as instantane- 
ously and decisively as he was by Charles Martel and his 
warlike Franks. History, secular as well as sacred, shows 



186 THE IDEA OF EVOLUTION DEFINED, 

that no form of heathenism or of worldly power can 
compete with a true and genuine Christendom. But an 
interior process of decline and decay had gone on in the 
very heart of these churches and this Christian society. 
The moral and intellectual strength had departed along 
with the pure scriptural piety of the founders and first 
witnesses, and the whole population fell an easy prey 
to the fanatic zeal of the Mohammedan. Instances like 
this throng upon the mind, but a single one is sufficient to 
show that the external development of Christianity is con- 
stantly liable to interruption in parts and sections of the 
entire career. The same fact stares us in the face, if we 
look at its internal history. Compare the present condi- 
tion of the Eastern church, with what it was when it took 
the lead of the Western ; when its Athanasius was the 
theologian, and its golden-mouthed Chrysostom the orator, 
for all Christendom. If this church could, this day, be 
put back fifteen hundred years, it would be in advance of 
its present position. The development has been inter- 
mitted for this length of time, and will continue to be, 
until an infusion of fresh life, through the missionary 
efforts of Protestant churches and the Divine blessing upon 
them, occurs. 

4. Notice, in the fourth place, as a sequence from these 
defects in the development which we have mentioned, 
that in Ecclesiastical History we can affirm a normal prog- 
ress only as we view the Church as a whole. Truth and 
piety are unfolded in the long run of ages, though not 
necessarily in each and every one of them ; in the general 
run of churches, though not necessarily in each and every 
one of them. Though the process is hindered, turned 
aside, and temporarily stopped, by the corrupt free agency 
of man, it is yet as a whole under the guidance and pro- 
tection of God, and therefore goes on; if not in this 



AND APPLIED TO HISTORY. 187 

nation and age, yet in another. We know from the prom- 
ise of the Author of Christianity that his religion is des- 
tined to a far wider extension among men than has yet 
been seen ; and upon this we must ultimately rest, in 
order to maintain a confident expectation that such will be 
the fact. Much is sometimes said of the self-realizing 
power of Christianity, but unless we identity the system 
with its Author ; unless we think of the Word and the 
Spirit of God as one undivided agency ; we cannot read 
certain chapters of Church History with any firm belief 
that even revealed truth will continue to expand with 
genial life within the hearts of men, and exert a continu- 
ous and mighty influence age after age. Take away from 
Christianity the doctrine of the Holy Ghost, and the veiy 
life of the system disappears. Take away from Church 
History the actual dispensation of spiritual influences, and 
the vitality of the process departs. And it is because the 
Holy Spirit has never left the Church as a whole, while 
He has suspended his quickening influences in sections, 
that we can say with the strictest truth, that the progress 
of the great whole has been continuous, though sometimes 
interrupted in the parts. 

5. Notice in the fifth place that the development of a 
section or an age, in Church History, is often only the re- 
production of some preceding type. When Christianity 
has declined, in a particular branch of the Church, the re- 
formation that takes place is really only the restoration of 
a previous form of vital godliness. It is not, however, 
the mere copy of an antecedent period, containing no 
more and no less elements, and in just the same propor- 
tions. History exhibits nofaG similes. There is no copy- 
ing in a living process, but there is reproduction, and a 
great amount of it. The Protestant Reformation was the 
revival of that genuine doctrine, and holy life, which had 



188 THE IDEA OF EVOLUTION DEFINED, 

manifested itself once before in the church of the first 
five centuries. And yet it was not a mere repetition of 
it, because those corrupt elements, in doctrine and morals, 
which began to come in particularly after the union of 
Church and State under Constantine, were expelled by the 
newly awakened religious life. The feeling of guilt, 
moreover, was more keen and poignant, and the appropria- 
tion of atonement more intelligent and cordial, than in the 
patristic period. Still, it was in the true sense of the word, 
a re-production, and it called itself a /^-formation. The 
aim of Luther was to restore a piety that had once before 
been the glory and strength of the church, and not to in- 
vent any new style of Christian life. Probably, in the 
outset, his desire was merely to make the Roman Catholic 
church what it was in the first three centuries, before the 
Romish bishop had become the Romish pope. And it 
was not until he saw that the Romish church of 1517 was 
radically different, in doctrine and in practice, from the 
Roman church of 350, and radically different from that 
invisible church to which he himself belonged, in com- 
mon with the holy of all ages, that he understood the true 
relation of the invisible to the visible, and became the in- 
strument in the hand of God of continuing the life of the 
church invisible, or the true catholic church, under a new 
outward organization. The ecclesiastical progress which 
Luther desired for the age in which he lived was a return 
to an age that lay more than a thousand years nearer the 
first promulgation and spread of Christianity. 

If we turn to the theology of the Reformatory period, 
the same fact meets us. The two theologians of this age 
were Melanchthon and Calvin. Examine the " Loci Com- 
munes " of the one, and the "Institutes " of the other, and 
see the substantial reproduction of an earlier theology.. 
From the beginning to the end of the Institutes, in par 



AND APPLIED TO HISTORY. 189 

ticular, there is a continual appeal to Augustine. Calvin, 
though of singularly strong and independent mind, and 
thoroughly convinced that the Scriptures are the only in- 
fallible rule of faith and practice, and thoroughly ac- 
quainted with them through a most exhaustive exegesis, 
nevertheless uniformly cites the exegetical and systematic 
opinions of the Latin father as corroborative of his own. 
And the relation between the two systems, is not merely 
that of confirmation and corroboration. So far as human 
influence was concerned, the one grew out of the other, 
and the other formed the one. Thus was it regarded as a 
progressive advance, by the leading spirits of the Refor- 
mation, to revive an antecedent form of faith and prac- 
tice, and in the sixteenth century to return to the first five 
centuries. 

Do we not in these facts find an incidental, but strong, 
corroboration of the position, that Church History is a 
process of organic development % Something more than 
mere chronological sequence, without action and reaction, 
is needed to account for such phenomena as we have been 
noticing. If the movement of Christianity in the world 
were merely rectilinear, straight forward in one line, we 
ought to find each succeeding age possessed of all that the 
preceding had possessed, together with something more of 
its own. In this case, the last must be wisest and holiest 
of all. But such is not the movement. The motion is 
circular, and spiral, rather than straight onward. The 
process is organic, and not mechanic, or mathematical. The 
line returns into itself, so that, as in the old philosophy, it 
is the circle, and not the right line, that symbolizes the 
living process. 

It is from this rectilinear rather than spiral conception, 
this mechanical rather than organic idea of History, that 
the common fallacy arises of supposing that each age, as 



190 THE IDEA OF EVOLUTION DEFINED, 

matter of course, contains all the development of the past, 
merely because it happens to be chronologically last in the 
series. This error rests upon the assumption, that juxta- 
position and location determine everything in History, and 
that a man living in the nineteenth century is wiser of 
course than one living in the seventeenth, because nineteen 
are two more than seventeen. This would be the case, if 
History were not an organic process, in which a part that 
has come into existence last in the order of time, is very 
often inferior and degenerate in point of quality. The 
latest blossoms are not always fruit blossoms.* We have 
seen that in any organism whatever, the parts are recipro- 
cally means and end. Each exists for all and all for 
each, so that no one part can be exalted to a supremacy 
over all the others. Hence, in History there is a continual 
inter-dependency. No one age is superior to all others. 
Some past periods, in the history of the church, have 
been in advance of the present in some particulars. The 
present is never in advance of all the past, in all respects. 
The age of the Reformation was in advance of the nine- 
teenth century, in a profound and living apprehension of 
the doctrine of justification by faith. The best Soteriulogy 
is derived from the sixteenth century. The creeds of the 
Reformers, in connection with the practical and theoretical 
writings by which they defended and explained them, 
have been the chief human instrument in forming the 

* Both Bacon and Pascal notice this oscillation in human progress. 
" As it happeneth sometimes," says Bacon (Advancement of Learning-, 
B. I.), "that the grandchild, or other descendant, resembleth the an- 
cestor more than the son doth ; so, many times, occurrences of present 
times may sort better with ancient examples, than with those of latter 
or immediate times." Pascal (Miscellanies) remarks that " nature 
works progressively : itus et reditus. She passes on and returns ; then 
recedes further, then twice the space back, then further for .vard than 
ever, and so on indefinitely. " 



AND APPLIED TO HISTORY. 191 

present Protestant theory of Redemption. The present 
age, on the other hand, has advanced greatly beyond the 
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, in respect to the ap- 
plication of Christianity to the wants of the world, and the 
exercise of a practical missionary spirit. Thus, one age is 
the teacher of another, the pupil of a second, the stimu- 
lator of a third. In some way or another, each of the his- 
toric sections sustains a relation of action and reaction ; and 
in and by this interagency the total process of evolution 
goes forward. Looking at the parts, we find them deficient ; 
looking at the whole, we find it approximately complete. 

At this point, then, let us retrace our steps, and suc- 
cinctly state the results to which we have come. 

In the first division of the subject, we obtained the 
definition of Abstract History. We found it to be evo- 
lution in the abstract ; a continuous process merely, with- 
out any qualification, in which the connection of parts and 
elements is necessary, natural, and organic. This is the 
most general idea, and is capable of being applied to each 
and every particular species of history, be it natural or 
moral ; be it the history of a vegetable, or of a man. But 
inasmuch as it is universal and abstract, it does not of it- 
self determine the character and value of the process. It 
simply indicates that it is an evolution from a poten- 
tial base, but with the specific qualities of this base, 
the abstract conception has no concern, and hence the 
doctrine of evolution is applicable, indifferently, to a 
latency that is good, or to a latency that is evil ; to a germ 
originated by the Creator, or to a germ originated by the 
creature. This rigorously abstract conception of the idea 
precludes that imperfect and narrow apprehension of it 
which insists, either expressly or tacitly, that every germ 
is of necessity good, and that all development is an inevi- 
table normal process. 



192 THE IDEA OF EfOLUTION DEFINED, 

In the second division of the subject, we have obtained 
a definition of Secular History. This we have found to 
be a particular species of evolution : that, namely, of a 
false germ. The common or so-called profane history of 
man is an illegitimate process, but none the less an or- 
ganic one, to which the idea of development applies with 
its fullest force. The difference between the Secular and 
the Christian unfolding of humanity relates not to the 
continuous nature of the processes themselves, but to the 
specific difference between their potential bases. The 
germ of the latter is the creation of the infinite will, while 
that of the former is the product of a finite faculty in its 
fall from God. 

In the third division of the subject we found a second 
species of concrete history : that of the Christian Church. 
The foundation of this is laid by a supernatural power 
which is strictly creative, and as such reoriginates the lost 
principle of spiritual life in the apostate creature. From 
this germinal point, under the maintaining and educating 
energy of the same Divine power that established it, a 
new development of humanity commences, which grad- 
ually destroys and expels the relics of the false germ, 
and though hindered and imperfect in its stadia here be- 
low, runs its round, and becomes a perfect and serene 
evolution in eternity. 

Neither one of these two evolutions can be or become a 
potential base for the other. Each can proceed only 
from its own germ. The origination of a false germ in 
the place of the expelled true one, and the restoration of 
the true one in the place of a dying false one, are both of 
them events that cannot be accounted for by the theory 
of development. There is no passage in the way of evo* 
lution, either from holiness to sin, or from sin to holi- 
ness. 



AND APPLIED TO HISTORY. 193 



§ 4. The verifying test in Christian History. 

Having now determined and applied the idea of evo- 
lution, and thereby come to an understanding of the na- 
ture of both abstract and concrete history, the second 
question mentioned in the first section, viz. : How may 
we verify our a priori conception in any particular in- 
stance ? still remains to be answered. This introduces to 
our notice the general subject of tests in History. To fol- 
low out this subject into all its branches would carry us 
beyond the limits we have prescribed for ourselves, and 
we shall accordingly, as in a previous instance, confine the 
discussion chiefly to Church History. 

Lord Bacon, in both the Novum Organum and De 
Angmentis Scientiarum, teaches that " the sciences require 
a form of induction capable of explaining and separating 
experiments, and coming to a certain conclusion, by a 
proper series of rejections and exclusions." * This "form 
of induction " in other places he terms a " method," or 
" clue," by which the mind is to be led through the be- 
wildering multitude of phenomena and experiments, 
without being confused by their variety, and deceived by 
their contrariety.f By it he means that correct a priori 
conception of a thing, in the light of which the inquirer 
is to detect all that properly belongs to it, and to reject 

* Opus est ad scientias inductionis forma tali, quas experientiam 
solvet, et separet, et per exclusiones ac rejectiones debitas necessario 
concludat. De Augmentis (Distributio operis). At inductio, quge ad 
inventionem et demonstrationem scientiarum et artium erit utilis, 
naturam separare debet, per rejectiones et exclusiones debitas ; ac de- 
inde post negativas tot quot sufficiunt, super affirmativas concludere. 
Novum Organum, lib. i., § 105. 

f Adhibenda est inductio legitima et vera, qua3 ipsa clavis est inter* 
pretationis. Novum Organum, lib. ii., § 10. 



194: THE IDEA OF EVOLUTION DEFINED, 

all that does not. The reader of Bacon is struck with the 
frequency with which he speaks of "rejections" and 
" exclusions " in the investigation of nature. He every- 
where assumes that there is a complexity, a mixture, and 
to some extent a contrariety in this domain, that renders 
some foregoing tests necessary, in order that the true ma- 
terials for science may be discriminated from the false, 
It is not enough to employ the senses in a merely passive 
manner, and see all that is visible, and accept all that is 
offered ; to allow the stream of facts and appearances to 
flow along by the mind, and simply describe what has 
passed. Bacon's phraseology often implies an inducing 
of the mind into the senses ; an introducing into this com- 
plex aggregate of sensational materials, of a mental or 
rational principle, that is to simplify and organize; in 
short, an induction of a method or an idea inwards, as 
well as a deduction of particular conclusions outwards.* 
Opposed as this sagacious and thoroughly English mind 

* Ea forma inducfcionis, de qua dialectici loquuntur, quge procedit per 
enumerationem siruplicem [impressionurn sensuum], puerile quid dam 
est, et precario concludit. Sensus ipsius informationes multis modis 
excutimus. Sensus enim fallunt utique. Duplex est sensus culpa : aut 
enim destituit nos, aut decipit. Itaque perceptioni sensus immediatae 
ac propriae non multum tribuimus : sed eo rem deducimus, ut sensus 
tantum de experimento, experimentum de re judicet. De Augmentis 
(Distributio operis). Mentis opus quod sensum subsequitur plerunque 
rejiciamus. Novum Organum (Prasfatio). Fallunt, et incompetentes 
sunt ese demonstrationes quibus utimur in universo illo processu, qui a 
sensu et rebus ducit ad axiomata et conclusiones. Qui quidem pro- 
cessus quadruplex est, et vitia ejus totidem. Primo, impressiones 
sensus ipsius vitiosae sunt ; sensus enim et destituit et fallit. At desti- 
tutionibus substitutiones, fallaciis rectificationes debentur. Secundo, 
notiones ab impressionibus sensuum male abstrahuntur ; et interminatae 
et confusaa sunt, quas terminatas et bene finitas esse oportuit. Tertio, 
inductio mala est, quas per enumerationem simplicem principia con- 
cludit scientiarum, non adhibites exclusionibus et solutionibus, sive 
separationibus naturas debitis. Novum Organum, lib. i., § 69. 



AND APPLIED TO HISTORY. 195 

was to the unverified and mere conjectures of the fancy, 
such as the alchemists, e. g., employed in investigating 
nature, he was not opposed to the initiating ideas and pre- 
conceived methods of the contemplative scientific mind. 
The fictions of occult qualities and hidden spirits he re- 
jected, but his own map of the great kingdom of nature, 
with his full list of a priori tests and capital experiments, 
to guide the inquirer through a region which he has not 
yet travelled over, and in which Bacon himself had en- 
tered only here and there by actual experiment and ob- 
servation, shows that he regarded the sober and watchful 
employment of the a priori method, by the scientific 
mind, to be not only legitimate but necessary. * 

Such a "form of induction 'Ms needed in History, in 
order that the investigator may make the requisite detec- 
tions, adoptions, rejections, and exclusions. For this 
science is not a miscellany of all that has happened. The 
historic spirit is not an undiscriminating one. The histo- 
rian needs to reject as well as to accept ; to distinguish 
the normal from the false development ; to detect the ele- 
ment of error in the mass of truth, or the element of truth 
in the mass of error. It is not enough merely to photo- 
graph an age ; to simply hold up a mirror that passively 
reflects all that occurred. This is the Chronicle, but not 
the History. It is an exceedingly interesting and dram- 
atic manner of representing the past, and furnishes the 
materials for the proper history. All true history has 
found its stuff in this minute and passive representation 
of the chronicle. Grecian history took its beginning in 
that body of narrative poems and legends which extends 
from Homer to Herodotus, and though this latter is styled 
the father of Grecian history, yet the student feels, on 

* See his " Sylva Sylvarum," and "Preparation for a Natural and 
Experimental History." 



196 THE IDEA OF EVOLUTION TEFINED, 

passing from that easy and childlike credulity which re- 
cords everything with equal seriousness to the searching 
and philosophic criticism of Tliucydides, that, witli the 
latter, the history, as distinguished from the chronicles of 
Greece, begins. Roman history springs out of the le- 
gends of the monarchical period, and such annals as those 
of Fabius Pictor, and, we must add, such narrative as 
that of Livy. English history derives its matter from the 
prose and metrical chronicles of the monks from 600 to 
1300. Now if it were the great aim of the historian to 
merely depicture the past exactly as it was upon its sur- 
face ; to place the reader in the process as an actor, and 
not above it as a judge ; certainly the chronicle would be 
the true and highest form of historic narrative. Read 
the chronicles of Froissart, and see with what minute 
fidelity everything is related, and with what dramatic 
vividness and interest the scenes of pacific and of war- 
like life are made to pass before the mind. But why are 
we unsatisfied with this account of the contest between 
France and England in those centuries, and why can we 
not accept it as history '( It is because there is in the 
narrative none of that discriminating spirit which is able 
to elevate the important and depress the unimportant ; to 
let the causes of events, the ideas and forces of the period, 
stand out with bold prominence. Because, in short, the 
chronicle teaches none of the lessons, and exhibits none 
of the philosophy, of history.* 

It is plain therefore that the historian must carry an 
idea, a method, in the phrase of Bacon, a " form of induc- 

* " In history, actions of honor and dishonor do appear plainly a>id 
distinctly, which is which ; but, in the present age they are so dis- 
guised, that few there be, and those very careful, that be not grossly 
mistaken in them." Hobbs' Epistle Dedicatory to his Translation oi 
Thucydides. 



AND APPLIED TO HISTORY. 197 

tion," into the world of human life, if he would exhibit 
its deep meaning and significance. By this he will be 
able to distinguish the causes from the effects, and to 
present them in their proper proportions and relations to 
each other ; to refer the phenomena to their grounds, and 
make the latter prominent above the former ; to condense 
minor and unimportant matter and expand what is funda- 
mental ; and especially to detect and show what belongs 
to the process of true historic development, and what 
does not. 

The position which we are endeavoring to establish has 
been very clearly and conclusively stated by one of the 
most profound of English writers, and we conclude this 
introductory part of the discussion by an extract from 
him. u A very common mode of investigating a subject," 
he says, " is to collect the facts and trace them downward 
to a general conclusion. 'N'ow suppose the question is as 
to the true essence and character of the English Constitu- 
tion. First, where will you begin your collection of 
facts? where will you end it? What facts will you 
select, and how do you know that the class of facts which 
you select are necessary terms, and that other classes of 
facts, which you neglect, are not necessary ? And how do 
you distinguish phenomena which proceed from disease or 
accident, from those which are the genuine fruits of the 
essence of the constitution ? What can be more striking, 
in illustration of the utter inadequacy of this line of 
investigation for arriving at the real truth, than the politi- 
cal treatises and constitutional histories which we have in 
every library ? A Whig proves his case convincingly to 
the reader who knows nothing beyond his author ; then 
comes an old Tory (Carte, for instance), and ferrets up a 
hamperfnl of conflicting documents and notices which 
prove his case per contra. A. takes this class of facts ; 



198 



B. takes that class ; each proves something true, neither 
proves the truth, or anything like the truth ; that is, the 
whole truth. 

We must, therefore, commence with the philosophic 
idea of the thing, the true nature of which we wish to 
find out and exhibit. We must carry our rule ready- 
made, if we wish to measure aright. If you ask me how 
I can know that this idea, my own invention and pre-con- 
ception, is the truth by which the phenomena of history 
are to be explained, I answer, in the same way, exactly, 
that you know that your eyes were made to see with; and 
that is, because you do see with them. If I propose to 
you an idea, or self -realizing theory of the constitution, 
which shall manifest itself as an existence from the ear- 
liest times to the present ; which shall comprehend within 
it all the facts which history has preserved, and shall give 
them a meaning as interchangeably causes or effects, 
principles or phenomena ; if I show you that such an 
event or reign was an obliquity to the right hand, and 
how produced, and such other event or reign a deviation 
to the left, and whence originating, that the growth was 
stopped here, accelerated there, that such a tendency is, 
and always has been, corroborative, and such other ten- 
dency destructive, of the main progress of the idea 
towards realization ; if this idea of the English constitu- 
tion, not only like a kaleidoscope shall reduce all the mis- 
cellaneous fragments into order, but shall also minister 
strength, and knowledge, and light, to the true patriot and 
statesman, for working out the bright thought, and bring- 
ing the glorious embryo to a perfect birth — then, I think, 
I have a right to say that the idea which led to this is not 
only true, but the truth, and the only truth in the case. 
To set up for a philosophic historian upon the knowledge 
of facts only, is about as wise as to set up for a musician, 



AND APPLIED TO HISTORY. 199 

by the purchase of some score of flutes, fiddles, and 
horns. In order to make music you must know how to 
play ; in order to make your facts speak truth, you must 
know what the truth is which ought to be proved; the 
ideal truth ; the truth which was consciously or uncon- 
sciously, strongly or weakly, wisely or blindly, intended 
at all times." * 

What then is the " form of induction " which we are to 
employ as our method or clew, to lead us through the 
mighty maze of materials in the history of the Christian 
Church % What is the antecedent idea, or self -verifying 
theory, with which we are to test and clarify the historical 
data in this department of inquiry, and how can we be 
certain that it is the true one % These are the questions 
now before us. 

The brief and most general answer to them is, that the 
true idea of Christianity is the key to the history of the 
Christian Church, and this true idea is furnished by the 
Scriptures. 

"We have seen, in a previous section, that the foundation 
of Christian History is Divine Revelation ; that the in- 
most life-power which restores the true development of 
humanity, and the inmost law which regulates the pro- 
cess, are the influences of the Divine Spirit allied with 
the doctrines of the Divine Word. If this is so, it follows 
that only revealed elements belong to the true history of 
the Church, and that all that is anti-scriptural should be 
detected and eliminated. The test, consequently, which 
the inquirer is to apply to the complex, and, as we have 
seen, somewhat heterogeneous materials that meet him on 
all sides, is the test of the written revelation. We have 
seen that the process of restoring a lost normal develop- 

* Coleridge's Table Talk (slightly altered). Works, VI. , pp. 443-444 
Harper's Ed. 



200 THE IDEA OE EVOLUTION DEFINED, 

ment is a dual one, because the expulsion of the relics of 
a false germ is going on contemporaneously. The history 
of the Church is imperfectly normal, not entirely sym- 
metrical, frequently interrupted, and nearer perfection as 
a whole than in sections. This would not be the case if 
the infallible and perfect revelation of God had found a 
full realization of itself in the Church. It follows, conse- 
quently, that this very revelation itself is to be used as the 
c * form of induction," the antecedent norm or rule, by 
which conformity and agreement are to be indicated and 
approved, and by w T hich deviations and contrariety are to 
be detected and rejected. In short, the student of Church 
history is to provide his mind with the Biblical idea of 
Christianity, and to use it rigorously, as the crucial test, 
while he examines the materials ; while he examines the 
forms of polity and of worship, the varieties of orthodox 
and heretical doctrinal statement, the methods of defend- 
ing Christianity, the modes of extending Christianity 
among unchristianized nations, the styles of life and 
morals, the specimens of individual Christian character. 
Through all this complex and perplexing mass of historical 
matter, the true Scriptural idea and theory of Christianity 
is to conduct the investigator, so that he may see the true 
meaning and worth of the facts and phenomena, and set a 
proper estimate upon each. That we may see the imper- 
ative need of some such guide, let us look at a single class 
of phenomena ; a single series of facts. We find a polity, 
a church constitution, in all the ages of the Church. There 
is the Jewish church-constitution ; then the exceedingly 
slight and almost invisible constitution of the Apostolic 
church of the first forty or fifty years after the death of 
Christ ; then the more consolidated republicanism of the 
close of the first and the beginning of the second century ; 
then the dim beginnings of the episcopate, followed by the 



AND APPLIED TO HISTORY. 201 

established primacy of the Roman bishop in the Western 
church, and of the Constantinopolitan bishop in the East- 
ern ; then the absolute monarchy of the Romish pope, 
and the ecclesiastical despotism of the mediaeval polity ; 
then, since the Reformation, the revival of all but the last 
of these forms of polity in the various branches of the 
Protestant church, together with the continuance of the 
Papacy and the Patriarchate. 

Here, now, is a mass of conflicting facts and phenom- 
ena, upon which it is necessary to form a truly historic 
judgment. It is not enough to take the position of the 
annalist and chronicler, and simply exhibit the facts, with- 
out any philosophic estimate of their intrinsic and relative 
value. Neither is it enough to give a vivid and dramatic 
picture of all these features and parts of the total process, 
and nothing more. The historian must set a proper esti- 
mate upon each and all, and deliver a judgment regarding 
them. He must say and show which of these forms of 
ecclesiastical polity is most congruous with the spiritual 
nature of Christianity. He must be able to say and show 
which of them deviates most from the general Christian 
idea of church government, and which is positively con- 
trary to it. He must be able to say and show which grew 
out of a false and corrupted apprehension of Christianity, 
and so tended to perpetuate the error in which it had its 
own birth. 

But how can he say and show all this, in reference to 
this mass of historical facts and phenomena, and how can 
he say and show the same in reference to the whole entire 
mass of historical materials, if he has not clear and bright 
in his own mind the true idea and theory of Christian- 
ity itself; that Divine idea which is to be seen struggling 
for realization through all this ocean of elements ; that 
Divine theory which is being executed feebly in this sec- 



202 THE IDEA OF EVOLUTION DEFINED, 

tion and powerfully in that, which is resisted in this age, 
and cherished in that, but which, in the entire sequence 
of ages and the whole sweep of years, is going on con- 
quering and to conquer ? And how is he to have this idea 
and theory clear and bright in his mind, leading it like 
the Beatrice of Dante through the Hell Purgatory and 
Paradise of History, except as he derives it from the fixed 
and unchanging written revelation, in which it is dis- 
tinctly enunciated and explained ? 

We say distinctly enunciated and explained ; for not- 
withstanding the difficulty of interpreting certain portions 
of the scriptures, and the many controversies that have 
arisen within the church, respecting the real mind of the 
Spirit, the written revelation so plainly teaches one gen- 
eral system of religion, that its prominent and distinctive 
features are to be seen in each and all of the various forms 
of evangelical doctrine that have appeared in the Church 
Universal. Even when this general system is overloaded 
with human inventions and additions which positively 
contradict and nullify it, or tend to crush it to death by 
their materialism, there is sometimes enough of it still left 
to show that the original formers of a symbol were 
nearer the Biblical system than their successors, and 
found less difficulty in detecting in the Bible a common 
teaching and creed. The creed of the Papal church, 
though not evangelical upon the distinctively evangelical 
doctrine of justification by faith, is yet in advance of the 
present religious character and teaching of that body, be- 
cause it still retains some of those scriptural elements that 
were incorporated into it in the better days of this church. 
And hence in modern times — since the Protestant Refor- 
mation, and undoubtedly under the influence that has 
radiated from the scriptural faith and purer practice of 
the Protestant churches — men like Pascal, and parties like 



AND APPLIED TO HISTORY. 203 

the Jansenists, have endeavored to effect a reform within 
the Roman Catholic communion, by cutting off the ex- 
crescences of tradition, and letting the original scriptural 
stock, imperfect as it was, grow on by itself. All the at- 
tempts at reform within a corrupt Christianity like that of 
the Romish and the Greek church, are implied proofs, and 
tacit confessions, that the written revelation is clear and 
unambiguous in its general teachings. For there could be 
no endeavors to get back to a conformity with an original 
directory, like the scriptures, unless it were believed that 
there is such an one, and that its directions are plain to the 
candid and truth-seeking mind. As matter of fact the sym- 
bols of the various churches are nearer to each other than 
their theological tracts and treatises are, because they are 
derived more immediately from scripture data: the 
Bible being not only a unity, but unifying in its in- 
liuence. 

Hence we say that the idea of Christianity, which the 
inquirer is to take with him into Church History, can be, 
and must be, derived from the scriptures themselves and 
alone. If it were a secular historic process, the precon- 
ceived idea need not necessarily be derived from a super- 
natural revelation. In the instance of the English Consti- 
tution, cited above, the investigator takes a purely human 
idea with him, as he follows the constitutional history of 
England down from age to age. This idea is no other 
than that organic law of the realm, of which jurists speak, 
and which is not to be referred to a specially supernatural 
source, but to the spontaneous operation of the natural 
reason of man. The same is true of all Secular, as distin- 
guished from Christian history. The inquirer is not in the 
region of the Supernatural, and hence, although the light" 
that is thrown upon profane history by the Divine revela- 
tion is indispensable to seeing its deeper and more solemn 



204 



significance, it is yet not the sole light in which it must be 
viewed. 

But in Church History the light of revelation is the sole 
light by which to see, and the revealed idea and theory is 
the sole preconception by which the mind of the inquirer 
is to be guided. Pie who reads the history of the Church 
in the light of that Divine truth which lies at its founda- 
tion will not read amiss. He who constructs the facts, and 
builds up the account, by the method and plan furnished 
by the written word, will rear the structure in its true 
proportions. He who takes scriptural Christianity as the 
" form of induction " by which the true elements are to 
be discovered, and wrought into the account, and the 
false elements are to be detected, and expelled from it ; 
the "form of induction'' by which the tests are to be ap- 
plied to all the facts and phenomena, and the correspond- 
ing adoptions and rejections of good and bad materials 
are to be made ; he who rigorously applies this scriptural 
idea will investigate the history of the Church in such a 
manner as to convey the real lessons which it teaches. 
All ecclesiastical history composed in such a manner will 
be catholic and exactly true. It will not be made to serve 
the interests of any particular sect, for it will impartially, 
as do the scriptures themselves, expose all deviations from 
the truth of God, though within its own sphere, while it 
will faithfully report and depict all conformity to that 
truth, in whatever age or country it may be found. 

And this brings to our notice, the necessary and natural 
connection between Church History and Dogmatic The- 
ology. The two sciences are reciprocally related, and 
mutually influence each other. For this pre-conception, 
derived from the scriptures, of the nature of Christianity, 
whose leading Church History follows, is, for substance, 
that doctrinal system which the theological mind has 



AND APPLIED TO HISTORY. 205 

formed by the scientific study of the written revelation. 
Notwithstanding all professions to the contrary, every 
writer of ecclesiastical history, as well as of secular, has 
his own stand-point and view-point. This can be inferred 
from the spirit and teachings of his work, as unmistakably 
as the position of the draughtsman can be inferred from 
the perspective of his picture. Who can mistake the poli- 
tical, philosophical, and theological ideas which Hume 
carried with him from th"e beginning to the end of his 
history of England? Would a Liberal theory in politics, a 
Platonizing instead of a Fyrrhonizing mental philosophy, 
and a Christian instead of a Deistic theology, have read 
the facts in the career of the English state and church as 
he has read them ? Who cannot see the difference be- 
tween the rationalistic and the supranaturalistic conception 
of the Christian religion, as he reads the ecclesiastical 
histories of Semler and Ilenke on the one hand, and those 
of Mosheiin and Keander on the other ?' In all ages the 
written history of Christianity is very greatly affected and 
modified by the prevailing theological spirit and bent of 
the historian. 

But, on the other hand, dogmatic theology is greatly 
; ffeeted and modified by the history of the Church. Creeds 
and systems that are formed without much knowledge of 
past symbolism, are apt to differ, sometimes in minor and 
sometimes in essential respects, from creeds and systems 
that breathe a historic spirit. Thus the relation between 
the two sciences of theology and history is not that of mere 
cause and effect, in which the activity is all on one side, 
and the passivity all on the other. It is rather an organic 
relation, of action and reaction, in which both are causes 
and both are effects, both are active agents and both are 
passive recipients. 

But, in this connection, it is important to notice, that 



THE IDEA OF EVOLUTION DEFINED 



the Scriptures stand above both theology and history, as 
the infallible and unchanging rule by which both are to 
receive their ultimate formation. We assume, and believe 
we are correct in so doing, that the systematic theology 
which the Christian mind has derived from the written 
word agrees with the real teaching of this unerring source 
of religious truth. Still, the scientific Christian mind is 
not infallible, and it is possible for it to deviate from the 
matter of Scripture. Hence the need of a continual 
reference and recurrence to revelation, on the part of 
dogmatic theology. Again, the experimental conscious- 
ness of these doctrines in the mental and moral life of the 
Church is not of necessity and beyond all possibility of de- 
viation a perfect and normal experience. This historic 
Christian life needs the guidance, and often the rectifica- 
tion, of the revealed cannon. Neither dogmatic theology 
nor the historic movement of the Christian mind can safe- 
ly be left to themselves, without any protection from the 
written word. Even if each should be carried along for a 
time by its own momentum upon the right line, the side 
influences of the remaining corruption and darkness of 
human nature would soon begin to draw it aside, and the 
defluction would soon be plain and great. The actual 
career of some branches of the Church proves that unless 
there is a constant recurrence to the written word, both in 
theoretical and practical theology, a corruption of both 
theory and practice is the natural result. Those who 
would substitute tradition and the voice of the Church for 
the Scriptures, as well as those who would substitute the 
Christian consciousness itself for them, commit the same 
error in common. The Komanist and the Mystic are 
really upon one and the same ground, and are equally ex- 
posed to that corruption of Christianity to which every 
human mind is liable which does not place the Scriptures 



AND APPLIED TO HISTORY. 207 

above both the teachings of history and the Christian con- 
sciousness, whenever the question concerns an ultimate 
and infallible source of religious knowledge. 

While, therefore, we believe that Ecclesiastical History, 
both as it occurs and as it is written, is modified by the 
theology which prevails, and the theology which prevails 
is in turn modified by the knowledge of the past history 
of the church, we also believe, that the two cannot safely 
be left to their own inter- agency, and inter-penetration, 
unless both are all the time feeling the influences of the 
infallible revelation in which they both have their origin. 
Two streams may mix and mingle never so thoroughly, 
yet, unless the fountain is constantly pouring into them, 
their own mere motion cannot keep them pure, any more 
than it can keep their volume full. The idea of Christi- 
anity is therefore to be kept full, pure, and bright, in the 
head of the theologian and in the heart of the Christian, 
by the written word, which has been preserved for the 
Church, in order that, amid all the grades of knowledge 
and consequent varieties of experience that might arise 
within it, there might be a rule of faith and practice 
which, like its Author, should be without variableness or 
shadow of turning ; because what is written is written. 

By thus finding the Baconian " form of induction," or 
ultimate interpreting idea, for Church History, in the 
Scriptures solely, yet not refusing to employ the helps for 
understanding them afforded by the general theology, and 
the general religious experience of the Church Universal, 
we avoid that fault which we regard as on the whole the 
most serious defect in Schleiermacher and his school ; the 
fault, namely, of an undue subjectivity. For this school, 
the Christian experience, or " consciousness," has a worth 
and importance in both dogmatic and historic construc- 
tions to which it is not entitled. In the reaction against 



208 THE IDEA OF EVOLUTION DEFINED, 

the dead orthodoxy of the eighteenth century, they have 
practically undervalued the written objective revelation. 
We say practically, because in theory they adopt the Prot- 
estant maxim that the Bible" is the only infallible rule of 
faith and practice. Yet the student of a theological sys- 
tem like that of Schleiermacher, and a history like that of 
Neander, finds that the organization of the former and 
the construction of the latter are actually determined 
more by an appeal to the living consciousness of the 
Church than to the written word of God. The doctrinal 
development in the one representation, and the historical 
development in the other, is too much a self-determination 
of the Christian mind and soul with too little reference to 
the correcting and regulating influence of that Divine 
Truth in which all Christian experience must find its norm. 
The historian does not exhibit with sufficient fulness, the 
influence which the inspired canon has exerted upon the 
unfolding of the Christian life. The process of Sacred His- 
tory is regarded, too much, as self-directed. Hence, the 
general undervaluation of dogmatic statements as cramp- 
ing the movement of the free Christian spirit, the leniency 
towards certain heretical tendencies, and the occasional 
hesitating tone as well as vagueness of vision in respect 
to scientific orthodoxy, which characterize the best com- 
plete history of the Christian religion and church that has 
yet been written. 

What is needed is, more objectivity; more moulding 
by that fixed Object, that unchangeable Word, whose 
function it is to form the changing experience by its own 
fixedness and immutability. Consciousness cannot be an 
absolute and final norm for consciousness. It is the object 
of consciousness, by which the process of consciousness is 
to be shaped and determined. As that subjectire process 
of faith and of feeling which is seen in the Christian 



AND APPLIED TO HISTORY. 209 

Church owes its very existence to the objective revelation, 
so it must be kept pure from corruption and error by the 
same, and be criticised and estimated by the same. To 
leave the process to test itself, and to protect itself from 
corruption, is not safe. An individual Christian who 
should trust to the feelings of even a regenerate heart, 
and the inward light of even a renewed mind, without 
continually comparing this subjective feeling and knowl- 
edge with the written word, would be the victim of a de- 
teriorating, and, probably in the end, an irrational and 
fanatical experience. Much more then, is it unsafe to 
set up the Christian experience, as the ultimate source 
of Christian science and the final test of Christian 
development, either in the particular or in the universal 
Church. 

Hence the Church historian must guard against two ex- 
tremes. He must not, with the Rationalist, magnify the 
individual reason and the private judgment, to the dispar- 
agement of the general reason and judgment of the 
Universal Church, by disregarding or despising the his- 
toric faith and the historic experience. On the other 
hand, he must not with the Roman Catholic seek the ulti- 
mate source of religious knowledge in a tradition theoret- 
ically co-ordinated with revelation but practically supreme 
over it, nor with the Mystic Theology attempt to find it in 
a " Christian consciousness " which, like all forms of con- 
sciousness, is fugacious and shifting, and therefore liable 
to deterioration. These two extremes, involving three 
species of subjectivity, that of Rationalism, that of Ro- 
manism, and that of Mysticism, will be avoided by him 
who does not regard either the individual or the general 
Christian mind as upon an equality, in any sense, with 
the Scriptures, but believes that both the individual and 
the Church, in all ages, are to be subjected, both in 



210 THE IDEA OF EVOLUTION DEFINED. 

respect to doctrine and experience, to the tests of a wis- 
dom more unerring than that of the best and wisest of 
human minds or of human societies : the wisdom of an in- 
fallible inspiration. 



THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN * 



DAEGESTELLT 
YON JULIUS MULLEK. 

We have placed the title of this work of Miiller at the 
head of our article, not for the purpose of entering into 
an analysis and criticism of it at this time, but rather, as 
a strong and convenient shelter under which to labor 
upon the much vexed and much vexing doctrine of Ori- 
ginal Sin. We are the more inclined to connect our re- 
flections upon this subject with this work, in even this 
slight and external manner, first, because they coincide 
substantially with what we suppose to be the general 
theory presented in this thorough and thoroughly elabo- 
rated treatise, though differing from it, as may be seen, on 
the point of the nature of the connection of the individual 
with Adam, and by such other modifications as would 
naturally result from considering the subject from other 
points of view, and with reference to questions current 
among a theological public, differing very considerably 
from that in the midst of which this work originated ; 
and, secondly, because it gives us countenance in the 

* Keprinted from the Christian Review, Jan. 1852. 



212 THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN. 

attempt to investigate the doctrine from a metaphysical, 
and not merely psychological, position. For it is the 
misfortune of the theology in vogue for the last hundred 
years, as it seems to us, that sin has been contemplated 
in its phenomenal aspects, rather than in its hidden 
sources. The majority of treatises that have been writ- 
ten upon this subject since the middle of the eighteenth 
century, have been occupied principally with conscious, 
and (technically so called) actual transgression ; while 
sin, in the form of a nature, deeper than consciousness, 
and the very fountain of all consciousness itself, on this 
subject, has too generally been neglected. While, there- 
fore, the psychology of sin has been diligently investi- 
gated, and with as much success as could have been ex- 
pected under the circumstances, the metaphysical side of 
the doctrine has made little or no progress. If we turn to 
the treatises of an elder day — to the doctrinal statements 
on this subject of Augustine or Calvin, or Turretine, or 
Owen, or the elder Edwards — we find the reverse to be 
the fact. Here the essence of sin is regarded as a na- 
ture, or state of the soul, which manifests itself in a con- 
scious and actual transgression that derives all its ma- 
lignity and guilt from this, its deeper source. With this 
source itself — this metaphysical ground of the psycholo- 
gical or conscious transgression — the profound intellect 
and acute speculation of these men were chiefly occu- 
pied, knowing that if all the contradiction and all the 
mystery on this difficult doctrine, could be cleared up at 
this point, the question would be settled once for all. 
Instead, however, of advancing in the general line of ad- 
vance, marked and deeply scored into all the best theo- 
logy of the past, the theological mind for the last cen- 
tury has stopped short, as it seems to us, and has con- 
tented itself with investigating the mere superficies of 



THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN. 213 

the subject — ignoring, and in some instances denying, 
the existence of its solid substance. The effect of this 
species of theologizing is every way deleterious. In the 
first place, the problem itself can never be solved by this 
method, any more than the mystery of life can be made 
clearer by a mere examination of the leaves and blossoms 
of a tree The creed statement of the doctrine of origin- 
al sin has made no advance since the statement made in 
1643, by the Westminster Assembly. There has been 
much acute and intense speculation upon the doctrine 
since that time, — for mysterious as it is, and repulsive as 
it is, to fallen human nature, it will ever charm like the 
serpent's eye, — but we know of no distinct and strict 
wording of the doctrine made since then, that contains a 
fuller and clearer and less contradictory statement than 
that of the Catechism. It is plain, that there will be no 
" progress in Theology " by this route. In the second 
place, this neglect of the sinful nature, and this fasten- 
ing of the eye upon the sinful exercises only, is greatly 
injurious to the interests of practical religion. The at- 
tention of man is directed to the mere surface of his 
character. His eye is not made to penetrate into what 
he is, because he is constantly occupied with what he 
does. The standard of character itself is lowered ; while, 
as all church history shows, the grade of character act- 
ually reached is far lower than that attained on another 
theory and view of sin. 

Finally, less unanimity among theologians is the na- 
tural result of this neglect of the metaphysical side of 
the doctrine of sin. We know that it is one of the most 
popular of fallacies, that nothing is less settled than 
metaphysics, — that the brain of a thorough-bred meta- 
physician is as confused as his heart, according to Burke, 
is hard. Still, in the face of the fallacy, we re-affirm 



214 THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN. 

that nothing but a return to the old ground occupied by 
the combatants of an earlier day, will enable theologians 
to range themselves into two, and only two, divisions, 
instead of the present variety of " schools," whose name 
is legion. The questions that arise, and the answers that 
are compelled, by a metaphysical method, as distinguished 
from a merely empirical one, locate the theologian, on one 
side or the other of the line ; because, by this method, 
terms are used in their strict signification, and. the con- 
ceptions denoted by them are distinct. 

Suppose, for example, that the term " sinful," when ap- 
plied to the nature of fallen man, instead of being 
employed in the sense of " innocent," as it sometimes is 
at the present day, had but the one uniform and constant 
signification of " guilty," — would not all who hold and 
teach the doctrine of a sinful nature see eye to eye on 
that point ? Suppose again, that the word " imputation " 
were employed to denote the charge of guilt upon the 
absolutely guilty, and never an arbitrary charge of any 
sort, — would not all who hold to the imputation of a 
sinful nature be at one on this point ? And yet the loose 
use of these and kindred terms, and the multiplication of 
schools in theology thereby, can be prevented only by 
that method of investigation which passes by all mani- 
festations and phenomena, and having reached the 
nature itself, asks — is it innocent, or is it culpable ? — is 
this nature as justly and properly imputable, and so, as 
worthy of punishment, in the case of the individual, as 
of Adam, or is it not? Here the subject lies in a nut- 
shell ; and while the " yea, yea," locates the theologian 
on one side of the line first sharply drawn in the days of 
Augustine, and the " nay, nay," locates him on the other 
side, what is still better, this strict handling of terms 



THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN. 215 

leads to a deeper and more satisfactory enucleation and 
establishment of the truth itself. 

For, if a man affirm that the fallen nature is sin itself 
and not the mere occasion of sin ; is guilt itself, and not 
the mere occasion of guilt ; and also, that all this is as 
true of the posterity of Adam as of the individual Adam 
himself, he is not only bound to explain this on rational 
grounds, but he is driven to the attempt to explain it by 
the inevitable movement of his own mind. . And this 
was the case with the men whom we have mentioned. 
They never shrank from affirming that the ultimate form 
of sin is a nature, that this nature is guilt, and that the 
wrath of God justly rests upon every individual of the 
human race because of it. And when pressed with the 
difficulties that beset this, and every other one of the 
" deep things of God," by as acute and able opponents 
as the world has ever seen, instead of relaxing the state- 
ment, or betaking themselves to a loose and equivocal 
use of words, they stuck to terms, and endeavored to 
think through, and establish, on philosophical grounds, a 
form of doctrine which they first and heartily adopted, 
on experimental and Scriptural grounds. We do not 
say that they completely solved the problem, but we 
verily believe that they were in the way of its solution, 
and that theological speculation must join on where they 
left off, and move forward in their line of advance. No 
one age, however wise and learned, can furnish a finished 
Theology for all the ages to come; but if we would 
have substantial advance, each and every age must be in 
communication with the wisdom and truth of the pre- 
ceding, and form a piece of continuity with it. 

Returning to this point of unanimity, consider for a 
moment the variety of opinions among us in regard to 



216 THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN. 

this subject of a sinful nature. What divisions and con- 
troversies exist among those who all alike profess to be 
Calvinists ! How little unanimity exists upon this doctrine 
araons; those who all alike repel the charge of Arminian- 
ism ! One portion or school teach, that there is a cor- 
rupt nature in man, but deny that it is really and strictly 
sinful. Another portion or school teach, that there is a 
nature in man to which the epithet " sinful " is properly 
applied, who yet, when pressed with the inquiry — is it 
crime,, and deserving of the wrath of God ? — shrink from 
the right answer, and return an uncertain sound, of which 
the substance is, that its contrariety to law, and not its 
voluntariness, is the essence of sin. Again, there are 
those who are prepared to fall back upon the ground of 
the elder Calvinists, up to a certain point, but who 
resolve the whole matter when pressed by their opponents, 
into the arbitrary will and sovereignty of God, and depre- 
cate all attempts to construct the doctrine on grounds of 
reason and philosophy. And finally, there are some who 
are inclined not only to the doctrinal statement of Augus- 
tine and Owen and the elder Edwards, but also to their 
method of establishing and defending it, by means of the 
doctrine of the real oneness of Adam and his posterity, 
in the fall of the human soul. And yet Calvinism is one 
in its nature and theory. Using this term to denote not 
merely that particular scheme of Christian doctrine drawn 
up by Calvin, but that doctrinal system which had its 
origin in the controversy of Augustine with Pelagius, 
and which received a further development through the 
reformed theologians on the continent, and the puritan 
divines of England, we may say that Calvinism teaches 
but one thing in regard to the existence of a sinful nature 
in fallen man, and but one thing in regard to the mean- 
ing of the term sinful. During those ages of controversy 



THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN. 21.7 

— the 16th and 17th centuries — those who held the 
doctrine of a sinful nature, and of a sinful nature that is 
guilt, stood upon one side, and stood all together ; and 
those who rejected this doctrine stood upon the other 
side, and also stood all together.* The Christian church 



* This is evident from the symbols of the three great divisions of the 
modern Protestant church, viz: the Lutheran, the Keformed (Calv-inistic), 
and the Puritan. 

Item docent, quod post lapsum Adae omnes homines, secundum naturam 
propagati, nascantur cum peccato, hoc est, sine metu Dei, sine fiducia erga 
Deum, et cum concupiscentia, quodque hie morbus, seu vitium originis vere sit 
peccatum, damnans et afferent aeternam mortem. 

Damnant Pelagianos et alios, qui vitium originis negant esse peccatum. 
Confessio Augustana, Articulus II. 

Est peccatum originis corruptio totius naturae, et vitium hereditarium, 
=*##** estque tarn foedum atque execrabile coram Deo, ut ad waiver- 
si generis humani condemnationem sufficiat. Confessio Belgica, Articulus XV. 

Peccatum originis, est vitium et depravatio naturae cuiuslibet hominis ex 
Adamo naturaliter propagati, qua fitut ab originali justitia quam longissime 
distet, ad malum sua natura propendeat, et caro semper adversus spiritura 
concupiscat, unde in unoquoque nascentium iram Dei atque damnationem meretur. 
Articuli XXXIX, Articulus IX. 

Qua transgressione, quae vulgo dicitur originale peccatum, prorsus defor- 
mata est ilia Dei in homine imago, ipseque et ejus posteri natura facti sunt 
inimici Dei, mancipia Satanae, et servi peccati, adeout mors aeterna habuerii 
et habitura est potentiam et dominium in omnes, qui non fuerunt, non sunt coe- 
litus regeniti. Confessio Scoticana, III. 

Peccatum omne cum originale turn actuale, quum justae Dei legis trans- 
gressio sit eique contraria, peccatori suapte natura reatum infert, quo ad iram 
Dei, ac maledictionem legis subeundam obligatur, adeoque redditur obnoxius morti 
sirrnd et miseriis omnibus spiritualibus, temporalibus, ac aeternis. Westmin- 
ster Confessio fidei, Cap. VI. § 6- 

Every sin, both original and actual, being a transgression of the righteous 
law of God, and contrary thereunto, doth in its own nature bring guilt upon 
the sinner, whereby he is bound over to the wrath of God, and curse of the 
law, and so made subject to death, with all miseries spiritual, temporal, and 
eternal. Boston Confession of Faith. Chapter VI. 

Q. What are the effects of this first sin of man 1 A. 1. Guilt : whereby 
they are bound to undergo due punishment for their fault. 2. Punishment ; 
which is the just wrath of God, with the effects of it upon them for the filth 
of sin. Davenport's New Haven Catechism. 



218 THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN. 

was divided into two divisions, and no more. And this, 
because the controversy was a thorough one, owing to 
the profound view of sin taken by the disputants on the 
Augustinian side ; the metaphysical, rather than merely 
psychological aspect of the doctrine being uppermost. 

It is therefore in this connection that we rejoice at the 
appearance, in this age, of a work like that of Miiller, 
which recognizes a deeper source and form of sin than 
particular and conscious choices, and invites the theolo- 
gian to contemplate the origin and essential character of 
that nature and state of the human soul, from which all 
conscious transgression proceeds. Whether it adopt all 
the views of the author or not, we are confident the 
reflecting mind that has made itself acquainted with the 
history of the doctrine of original sin, will find no diffi- 
culty in deciding on which side of the great controversy 
this treatise is ; and furthermore, that it is on the whole 
a substantial advance towards a complete philosophical 
statement of the theological statement contained germ- 
inally in the works of Augustine, and formally in all 
the best symbols of the church. 

In commencing the investigation of the doctrine of 
original sin, we naturally start from one distinct and un- 
ambiguous statement of Scripture ; and we know of no 
one at once so plain and full as the affirmation of St 
Paul, that man is by nature a child of wrath. The doc- 
trine of a guilty nature in man is taught either by impli- 
cation, or by an explicit detail, in other passages in 
Paul's Epistles, in the Psalms of David, in the Epistles 
of John, in the Prophecies of Isaiah and Jeremiah, 
and in the teachings of Christ ; but perhaps no single 
text of Scripture enounces the doctrine so briefly and 
comprehensively as this. It makes specific mention of 



THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN. 219 

the two principal characteristics of human sinfulness: 
(1,) its depth, and, by implication, its universality ; and 
(2.) its guilt. After all that may be said upon this 
boundless subject, in its various relations to man, to the 
universe, and to God, the whole substance of the doc- 
trine may be crowded into a very narrow compass. 
When we have said, that man is by nature a child of 
wrath — when we have said, that sin is a nature, and 
that this nature is guilt — we have said in substance all 
that can be said. The most exhaustive investigation of 
the subject will not reveal any feature or element that is 
not contained by implication in this brief statement. 

The true method of investigating the doctrine is thus 
prescribed by the terms in which it is stated in Scripture, 
and we shall endeavor to follow it rigidly. We shall 
endeavor to exhibit the Scriptural doctrine of original 
sin, not by merely reciting a series of texts, and there 
leaving the matter, but by seizing upon the most signifi- 
cant and pregnant text of all, and rigorously developing 
it. If we are not mistaken, the simple contents of this 
one proposition of St. Paul, will unfold themselves by 
close reflection into a detailed view, and a doctrinal 
statement, that will be found to harmonize also with rea- 
son and the Christian experience. 

I. This passage of inspiration teaches, that sin is a 
nature. " We were fyvaei — by nature — children of 
wrath." The Greek word ^vo-*?, like the Latin, natura, 
always denotes something original and innate, in con- 
tradistinction to something acquired by practice or habit. 
Whenever we wish to represent an attribute or quality, 
as residing in a subject in the most deep and total man- 
ner possible, we say that it is in it by nature, or as 
a nature ; and when in our investigations we are brought 



220 TJIE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN. 

back to a nature, as a fundamental basis, we think we 
have reached the bottom.* 

When we search for the essence of human sinfulness, 
we find it in the form of a nature in the man. Suppose we 

* The word "nature" for some minds conveys only the meaning of "cre- 
ated substance," so that to assert that sin is a nature, is tantamount, for 
them, to the assertion that it is the substance or essence of man. This is 
not its use in this essay. Sin is not substance but agency : it is not the es- 
sence of the will but its action ; not the constitution of this faculty but its 
motion. The term " nature," consequently, when applied to moral agency, 
is equivalent to " natural disposition." 

None were more careful to guard against the Manichaean doctrine, that 
sin is substance, than those who have held the doctrine that man has a sin- 
ful nature and that this nature is guilt. Augustine carefully distinguishes 
between the work of the Creator and that of the creature. The work of 
the former he often designates by the term natura. Employed in this sense 
he denies that sin is nature, or belongs to the course and constitution of na- 
ture. Omne autem vitium naturae nocet, ac per hoc contra naturam est. (De 
Civ. Dei XII. 1). The entire argument in Chapter 6 of Book XII. of the 
De Civitate Dei, endeavors to prove that moral evil is the pure self-motion 
of the will of the creature. 

Consonant with this, Calvin (Institutes B. II. C. I. § 11 ) remarks " We say, 
therefore, that man is corrupted by a natural depravity, but which did not 
originate from nature. We deny that it proceeded from nature, to signify 
that it is rather an adventitious quality or accident, than a substantial prop- 
erty originally innate. Yet we call it natural, that no one may suppose it 
to be contracted by each individual from corrupt habit." Again (Inst. B. I. 
C. XIV. § 3) "neither the depravity and wickedness of men and devils, nor 
the sins which proceed from that source, are from mere nature, but from a 
corruption of nature." Again (Inst. B. I. C. XV. § 1), " we must beware 
lest, in precisely pointing out the natural evils of man, we seem to refer 
them to the Author of nature." Again (Inst. B. I. C. XV. § 1), "it would 
redound to the dishonor of God, if nature could be proved to have had any 
innate depravity at its formation." 

The Formula Concordiae is careful to assert, in opposition to the doc- 
trine of an extreme party in the Lutheran church, " peccatum originate 
non esse ipsam hominis naturam, aut essentiam, hoc est, ipsius hominis cor- 
pus et animam, (quae hodie in nobis, etiam post lapsum sunt, manentque 
Dei opus et creatura) sed malum illud originis esse aliquid in ipsa hominis 
natura, corpore, anima, omnibusque viribus humanis." Hase's Libri Sym 
holici, p. 639. 



THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN. 221 

arrest the sinner in the outward act, and fix our attention 
upon sin in this form, we are immediately compelled, by 
the operation of our own mind, to let go of this outward 
act, and to seek for the reality of his sin within him. The 
outward act, we see in an instant, is but an effect of a 
cause ; and we instinctively turn our eye inward, and 
fasten it upon the cause. The outward act of transgres- 
sion drives us, by the very laws of thought, to the power 
that produced it — to the particular volition that origin- 
ated it. No mind that thinks at all upon sin can possi- 
bly stop with the outward act. Its own rational reflec- 
tion hurries it away, almost instantaneously, from the 
blow of the murderer — from the momentary gleam of 
the knife — to the volition within that strung the muscle, 
and nerved the blow. 

But the mind cannot stop here in its search for the 
essential reality of sin. When we have reached the 
sphere — the inward sphere — of volitions, we have by 
no means reached the ultimate ground and form of sin. 
We may suppose, that because we have gone beyond 
the outward act — because we are now within the man — 
we have found sin in its last form. But we are mis- 
taken. Closer thinking, and what is still better, a deeper 
experience, will disclose to us a depth in our souls, lower 
than that in which volitions occur, and a form of sin 
in that depth, and to the bottom of it, very different from 
the sin of single volitions. 

The thinking mind which cannot stop with mere 
effects, but seeks for first causes, and especially the heart 
that knows its own plague, cannot stop with that quite 
superficial action of the will which manifests itself in a 
volition. This action is too isolated — too intermit- 
tent — and, in reality, too feeble, to account for so steady 
and uniform a state of character as human sinfulness. 



222 THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN. 

For these particular volitions, ending in particular out- 
ward actions, the mind instinctively seeks a common 
ground. For these innumerable volitions, occurring each 
by itself and separately, the mind instinctively seeks one 
single indivisible nature from which they spring. When 
the mind has got back to this point, it stops content, be- 
cause it has reached a central point. "When it has traced 
all these outward acts and inward volitions to one com- 
mon principle and source, it stops content, because it has 
introduced unity into the subject of its investigation. 
When the human mind has attained a view that is both 
central and simple, it is satisfied. 

It is not more certain, that we are compelled by the 
laws of our minds to refer properties to a substance, than 
that by the operation of the same laws, we are compel- 
led to refer sinful volitions to a sinful disposition. When 
we see exercises of the soul, we as instinctively refer 
them to a natural character in that soul, as we refer the 
the properties of a body to the substance of that body. 
In both cases the human mind is seeking for unity and 
simplicity in its perceptions. It cannot be content with 
merely looking at these various properties of matter, this 
impenetrability, this extension in space, this form, this 
color, and stopping here. It wants unity of perception, 
and simplicity of perception, and therefore it goes farther, 
and refers all these properties to one simple substance, 
of which they are the manifestation. In like manner, 
the human mind cannot be content with merely looking 
at all these exercises — these unnumbered volitions of the 
soul. It craves unity and simplicity of perception here 
too, and refers these innumerable, sinful volitions, to a 
sinful nature in man, one and indivisible, of which they 
are the manifestations. 

Again : the argument from the Christian experience is 



THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN. 223 

as strong as that from the nature of the human mind, in 
favor of the position that the ultimate form — the essen- 
tial reality — of sin, is a nature. Although in the first 
period of conviction of sin, the attention of the man may 
be directed mainly to actions and volitions; and although 
this may be the case to a considerable extent, even in 
the first stages of the Christian experience, it is yet safe 
to say, that the Christian man is troubled through the 
Christian life on earth, mainly, and permanently, by his 
sinful nature. The reality of sin, for every man whose 
experience is worth being taken as testimony, is not 
in particular volitions of his will, but in its abiding 
state — not in what he chooses to do now and then, but 
in that unceasing, uninterrupted determination of self to 
evil. This is the torment of his life — that below his 
volitions to sin — below his resolutions to reform — even 
below his deepest self-examination, and his most distinct 
self-knowledge — below all the conscious exercises and 
operations of his soul, there is a sinful heart, a dark 
ground of moral evil. 

We are aware of the mysteriousness which is thrown 
over the subject of sin, by the assumption of a form of 
sin which is deeper than consciousness. But we must 
take things as we find them, whether they are mysterious 
or not ; whether we can explain them or not. The con- 
tents which" we are to analyze are given to our hand, and 
whether we succeed or not in the analysis, they have the 
same fixed and real nature of their own. And, we may 
add, the true way to arrive at the unfolding of a mys- 
tery, is to recognize in the outset, the existence of all 
that belongs to it. The true way to arrive at the suc- 
cessful solution of a dark problem, is to retain all the 
terms of its statement. To throw out one or more of 
lie terms which properly belong to the problem, and in 



224 THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN. 

which itb real nature is contained, because it seems to be 
a troublesome term to manage, is to utterly prevent the 
solution ; and the attempt to unfold the deep mystery of 
original sin, while rejecting in the outset an element that 
is essential — the sin that is deeper than consciousness, 
or the sinful nature, as distinguished from sinful voli- 
tions — simply because it darkens a subject that is con- 
fessedly mysterious, must inevitably be a failure. 

Without troubling ourselves, therefore, at this point in 
the investigation, about the mysteriousness of a sin of 
which we are not conscious, because it is the basis and 
explanation of consciousness, and therefore of necessity 
below its range and plane, let us here and now settle the 
fact, whether there is any such sin. 

(1.) And, in the first place, is it not a fact, that in 
regard to the matter of sin, we do refer all the conscious 
processes of our souls to something back of these process- 
es ? The materials that make up our consciousness as 
sinners — the innumerable items of which it is compos- 
ed — the thousands of wrong volitions, and the hundreds 
of thousands of wrong emotions, and the millions of wrong 
thoughts — do we not, as a matter of fact, refer them 
all to some one thing, out of which they spring ? Can 
we, and as matter of fact do we, continue to chase 
these innumerable and constantly vanishing particulars, 
dropping one as soon as we have reached the next suc- 
ceeding, because the mind can grasp but one thing at a 
time, and thus lose the mind in an endless series, instead 
of collecting it in one act of contemplation and reflec- 
tion ; or do we, with David, cease this attempt to num- 
ber our iniquities, and having acknowledged that they 
are more than the hairs of our head, (Ps. xl. 12,) with 
him confess a one sin of heart and of nature at the bot- 
tom of them all ? No man who has had any experience 



THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN. 2^5 

on this subject at all, will deny that such is the fact. — • 
Whatever his theory may be, every man does, in his 
private reflections and secret confession to God, find a 
form of sin within him which he regards as the fountain 
and cause of all his particular and conscious transgres- 
sions. He finds an original sin from which these partic- 
ular wrong thoughts, emotions, and volitions, proceed. 

(2.) And now, in the second place, is it not a fact, that 
we are never conscious of this source itself of transgres- 
sions, but only of what Hows from it ? We are undeni- 
ably conscious of these thoughts, these emotions, these 
volitions — of these items which go to make up the sum 
of our experience — of these various materials of con- 
sciousness. But, are we, as matter of fact, ever conscious 
of that principle of evil — that sinful nature, to which, as 
we have seen, we instinctively refer all our conscious 
transgressions ? We have only to reflect a moment to 
see that we are never conscious of this sinful nature itself, 
but only of what proceeds from it. The evil principle to 
which we refer all these manifestations of evil, remains 
ever below the plane of consciousness. These manifes- 
tations may, themselves, become more and more profound, 
and may carry us down into deeper and deeper regions, 
but we find the sinful nature ever below us ; as we go 
down into the depths of our apostate souls, and know 
still more and still more of the plague of our hearts, we 
are all along, and at every lower point, obliged to assume 
the existence of a yet deeper sin than our consciousness 
has grasped. We never reach the bottom ; we never 
come, in consciousness, to the lowest and ultimate form 
of sin ; or, which is the same thing, we never see the 
time when we have become conscious of all our sinful- 
ness, and there are no further discoveries for us to make. 
The prayer of David is the proper prayer for us to the 



226 THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SPN. 

iay of our death : " Search me, O Lord, and try me, and 
see what evil ways are within me; cleanse Thou me 
from secret faults." A prayer, it may be remarked, that 
is utterly unintelligible on the hypothesis that there is no 
sin deeper than consciousness. 

This sinful nature, as distinguished from the conscious 
transgressions that proceed from it, is not a part of our 
experience, but something which we infer from our expe- 
rience, as the origin and explanation of it. It is the 
metaphysical ground of the physical — i. e., psychological 
— phenomena. We find within consciousness, an in- 
numerable amount of particulars — an endless series of 
wrong thoughts, emotions, and volitions — each occur- 
ring by itself; and this is all we do or can find in con- 
sciousness. And if we were confined merely to what we 
are conscious of — if we were shut up to the series of our 
experiences merely — we should never come to the knowl- 
edge of a sinful nature. We should be compelled to stop 
with the phenomenal merely. But when in reflection, 
and for the purposes of science, we arrest all these pro- 
cesses of consciousness — when we bring this ever-flow- 
ing stream of conscious transgressions to a stand-still — 
that we may look at them, and find the origin and first 
cause of them, then we are obliged to assume a principle 
below them all, to infer a nature back of them all. — 
Thus, this sinful nature is an inference, an assumption, or, 
to use a word borrowed from geometry, a postulate, which 
the mind is obliged to grant, in order to find a key that 
will unlock, and explain, its own experience. 

" But granting," the objector may say, " granting that, 
as matter of fact, we do infer and assume, from what we 
find in our consciousness, the existence of a nature 
deeper than consciousness, to which we refer the data of 
experience, and by which we explain them, what evidence 



THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN. 227 

is there, that there is in reality any such thing ? By youi 
own confession, it is entirely beyond the sphere of human 
consciousness ; and though it may be a convenien 
a priori postulate, under which to group and generalize 
the various particulars in our experience, what evidence 
is there, that there is an actual correspondent to it in the 
human soul ? " We answer : The evidence in this case 
is precisely the same with that which exists in the case 
of any and every purely metaphysical truth. The evi- 
dence cannot of course be derived from consciousness, 
because we are seeking the ground and explanation of 
consciousness itself; and therefore must be sought for in 
that normal and necessary movement of our rational intellect^ 
by which we are compelled to the a priori assumption. — 
We find ourselves necessitated^ in every instance that we 
attempt to find an adequate origin for our particulai 
transgressions, to assume the existence of a sinful nature, 
and this rational necessity in the case, is the evidence that 
we need. When we find that the mind is driven by the 
very laws of thought to an a priori assumption, and that 
it is invariably driven to it whenever it reflects at all upon 
its experience, we have all the evidence that can be had 
for a metaphysical truth — all the evidence that can 
rationally be required, that the assumption corresponds 
to the truth and reality in the case. Reason cannot 
impose upon itself, and invariably teach a truth of know- 
ing, that is no truth of being — a truth of logic and 
science, that is no truth of fact ; and therefore it is, that 
men will always believe that there is a substance in 
which properties inhere, and a nature from which mani- 
festations proceed, though there is no evidence from con- 
sciousness for either. The fact, that the human mind, in 
the exercise of its sober reflection upon the data of con- 
sciousness, is invariably and unavoidably comnell^d f o a 



228 



THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGIx\AL SIN. 



given assumption, is evidence that the assumption has 
rational grounds, and corresponds to truth and reality. — 
If it is not, then a lie has been built into the very struc- 
ture of the human mind, and it is not to be trusted in 
regard to any a priori truth. If, when following the laws 
of thought, and trusting to the constitution imposed 
upon it by the Creator, there is no certainty that the 
assumptions which it is compelled to make, as the suffi- 
cient ground and adequate explanation of its experimental 
consciousness, correspond to the truth of things, the 
human mind might as well stop thinking altogether. 

And what shall we do in this connection with the 
sense of guilt ? This sinful nature, as matter of fact, is 
the source of remorse, and the cause of the most poignant 
self-reproach in those whose senses have been exercised 
to discern good and evil. Can we suppose that there is 
a lie here too, and that pangs come into the human soul, 
and exist there, with no valid reason for them, no real 
ground for them to rest upon ? Can we suppose that all 
the remorse and self-reproach that has resulted in the 
souls of men, from a knowledge of their nature and 
character, and not merely of their particular acts, was 
un-called for, because there is in reality no such nature ? 
Can we suppose that He who looks on things precisely 
as they are, knows that there is no just cause for this 
mental distress in His creatures ? 

In addition to these arguments derived from the nature 
of the human mind, and the sense of guilt, (which latter 
point opens a wide and most interesting field of investi- 
gation,) we may add, that the history of Christian doctrine 
shows that the church has in all ages believed in a sinful 
nature, as distinguished from conscious transgressions, 
The soundest, and, as we believe, the profoundest symbols 
all teach the existence of a form of human sinfulness 



THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN. 229 

running deeper than even the most thorough and search- 
ing Christian experience — or, which is the same thing, 
that the Divine Eye beholds a corruption in man, more 
radical and more profound than has ever been seen by 
the eye of man himself. 

II. Assuming, then, that the fact of a sinful nature 
has been established, we pass to the second statement 
of St. Paul, that man is by nature a child of wrath. We 
pass from his statement, that sin, in its ultimate form, 
is a nature, to his statement, that this nature is guilt. 
And v& need not say, that in so doing, we are passing 
over into the darkest and most dangerous district in the 
whole domain of theological speculation. The recon- 
dite nature of the subject, the difficulty of clearly ex- 
pressing one's conceptions, even when they lie distinct 
in one's own mind, the liability to push a point too far, 
the failure to guard one's statements with sufficient care, 
and many other causes that might be specified, conspire 
to render this side of the doctrine of original sin one of 
the most difficult of all topics of discussion. And be- 
fore we venture out into this region, we wish to say 
beforehand, that we should regret and dread above all 
things, to advance any views on this important doctrine 
that would conflict with the Christian's experience of 
the plague of his heart — any views that would be in the 
least degree prejudicial to that profound view of sin which 
the soul does actually have when under the teaching and 
influence of the Holy Spirit. We most heartily and re- 
ligiously acknowledge, that here the Practical must have 
preference to the Speculative ; and we would immediate- 
ly give up any speculative view or theory of sin that we 
might have formed, the moment that we saw that it 
would go, or tend in the least, to disparage a thorough- 
going statement of the doctrine in a creed, or to pro- 



230 THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN. 

mote an imperfect and shallow experience of it in the 
heart. 

The apostle teaches, that sinful man is a child of 
wrath. Now, none but a guilty being can be the object 
of the righteous and holy displeasure of God. The doc- 
trine of the Divine Anger is tenable only on the sup- 
position that the objects upon whom it expends itself 
are really ill deserving — are really criminal. It becomes 
necessary therefore to show, that that sinful nature of 
man, on account of which he becomes a child of wrath, 
and obnoxious to the Divine anger, is a guilty nature. 
In doing this, we shall be led to discuss sin in fts rela- 
tion to the human Will, and to Adam, the first man. 

(1.) In regard to the first point, the position taken is, 
that this sinful nature is in the Will, and is the product 
of the Will. We say that it is in the Will, in contra- 
distinction to the physical nature of man. One state- 
ment of the doctrine of original sin makes it to consist 
in the depravation of man's sensuous nature merely. In 
this case, the Will is conceived to be extraneous to this 
corrupted nature, and merely the executor of it. Origin- 
al sin, in this case, is not in the voluntary part of man, 
but in the involuntary part of him ; and guilt cleaves to 
him when the voluntary part executes the promptings of 
the involuntary part ; and guilt does not cleave to him 
until this does take place. The adherents of this view 
insist, (and properly too, if this statement is correct,) 
that the term " sinful," in the sense of guilty or criminal, 
cannot be applied to this depraved physical nature — to 
this (so-called) original sin. 

In opposition to this view, we affirm that original sin 
does not consist in the depravation of man's sensuous or 
physical nature, but in the depravation of his Will itself. 
The corruption of the physical nature of man is one of 



THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN. 231 

the consequences of original sin, but not original sin it- 
self. This is a depravation of a far deeper and more 
central faculty than that of sense — a corruption of the 
voluntary power itself. It is because the human Will — • 
the governing power in the soul — first fell away from 
God, that the other faculties of man are in the condition 
they are, that the affections are carnal, that the under- 
standing is darkened, that the physical nature is de- 
praved ; and these effects of apostasy should never be 
put in the place of their cause — of that corruption of the 
Will which is the origin of them all. 

But the examination of a single instance of the grati- 
fication of a sensuous propensity, is enough to show 
that sin lies elsewhere than in the physical nature. A 
man, we will suppose, gratifies the sensuous craving for 
strong drink. The sin in the case does not lie in this 
craving of the sensuous nature, corrupted though it be. 
The sin in the case lies further back, in the Will ; and. 
be it observed, not solely in that particular volition of 
the Will by which the act of drinking was performed, 
but ultimately in that abiding state of the Will — that 
selfishness, or selfish nature in the Will — which prompt- 
ed and permitted the volition. Here, as in every in- 
stance, we are led back to a sinful nature, as the essence 
of sin; and this nature we find in the Will itself; we 
find it to be a particular state of the Will itself. 

But, besides saying that this sinful nature is in the 
Will, we have said, furthermore, that it is the product of 
the Will. By this we mean, that the efficient producing 
author of this sinful nature is the Will itself; in other 
words, that this nature is a self-willed, a self-determined 
nature. Before proceeding further with this part of the 
subject, we wish to premise a few remarks upon these 
te* ns, " self-willed " and " self-determined." 



232 THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN. 

It is unfortunate for the cause of truth, and especially 
for the scientific development of the doctrine of original 
sin, that the term self-determination has been appropria- 
ted by the Arminian School in Theology ; and still more 
unfortunate, that the conception denoted by it has been, 
and still is, such a defective and inadequate one. Both 
Arminians and their modern opponents have understood, 
and still do understand, by this term, an ability in the 
Will, at any moment, to choose or refuse some particu- 
lar thing. The Will accordingly, both for Arminians 
and their opponents, is merely the faculty of single 
choices — the faculty of particular volitions ; and self-de- 
termination for both parties denotes the ability to put 
forth a single volition, or not, at pleasure. The Will for 
both parties is simply that faculty of particular choices, 
by which we raise a hand or let it drop — a species of 
voluntary power which the horse employs, in common 
with man, when he chooses clover and refuses burdock. 

This is the notion attached to the term self-determina- 
tion in the treatise of Edwards — the ability, viz., to 
resolve this way or that, at any moment, and under 
all circumstances ; and if this is the only self-deter- 
mination of which we can have any conception, then 
Edwards was correct in denying the doctrine. So far 
as his work combats this defective and inadequate no- 
tion of self-determination — so far as it seeks to over- 
throw the Arminian self-determination — it is one of great 
value. From such a superficial view of the Will, as 
being merely the faculty of single isolated volitions, and 
from such an inadequate notion of self-determination, as 
being merely the ability to choose or refuse a particular 
thing, in a particular case, nothing but the most shallow 
view both of sin and of regeneration could result. The 
great merit of Edwards in this polemic treatise, it beems 



THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN. 233 

to us 5 consists more in his powerful and successful re- 
sistance of a false theology, in connection with a thorough 
view of the fallen and corrupt Will, than in his own posi- 
tive statements concerning the ideal and original nature 
of this faculty.* 

In saying, therefore, that the sinful nature of man is 
the product of his Will, we do not mean to teach, that 
it has its origin in the Will considered as the faculty of 
choices, or particular volitions. We no more believe 
that original sin was produced by a volition, than that it 
can be destroyed by one. And if we can have no idea 
of the Will except as such a faculty of single choices, 
and no idea of voluntary action except such as we are 
conscious of in our volitions and resolutions, then we 
grant that the sinful nature must be referred to some 
other producing cause than the human Will, and that 
the epithets, " self-determined," and " self-originated," 
cannot be applied to it. 

But it seems to us that we can have a fuller and more 
adequate idea of the voluntary power in man than this 
comes to. It seems to us that our idea of the human 
Will is by no means exhausted of its contents, when we 
have taken into view merely that ability which a man 
has, to regulate his conduct in a particular instance. It 
seems to us that we do believe in the existence of a con- 
trolling power in the soul, that is far more central and 
profound than the quite superficial faculty by which we 
regulate the movement of our limbs outwardly, or in- 
wardly summon up our energies to the performance of 
particular acts. It seems to us, that by the Will, is 
meant a voluntary power that lies at the very centre of 
the soul, and whose movements consist, not so much in 

* Edwards's work on "The Affections," contains much that is of great 
•ralue for the construction of a philosophic theory of the Will. 



234 THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN. 

choosing or refusing, in reference to particular circum- 
stances, as in determining the whole man with reference 
to some great and ultimate end of living. The character- 
istic of the Will proper, as distinguished from the voli- 
tionary faculty, is determination of the whole being to an 
ultimate end, rather than selection of means for attaining 
that end in a particular case.* The difference between 
the voluntary and the volitionary power — between the 
Will proper and the faculty of choices — may be seen by 
considering a particular instance of the exercise of the 
latter. Suppose that a man chooses to indulge one of 
his appetites in a particular instance — the appetite for 
alcoholic stimulus, e. g. — and that he actually does gra- 
tify it. In this instance, he puts forth one single voli- 
tion, and performs one particular act. By an act of the 
faculty of choices, of which he is distinctly conscious, 
and over which he has arbitrary power, he drinks, and 
gratifies his appetite. But why does he thus choose in 
this particular instance ? In other words, is there not a 
deeper ground for this single volition ? Is not this parti- 
cular act of the choice determined by a far deeper and 
pre-existing determination of his whole inward being to 
self, as an ultimate end of living? And now, if the 
Will should be widened out and deepened, so as to con- 
tain this whole inward state of the man — this entire 
tendency of the soul to self and sin — is it not plain that 
it would be a very different power from that which put 
forth the particular volition ? Would not the Will, as 
thus conceived, cover a far wider surface of the soul, and 
reach down to a far deeper depth in it, than that faculty 

* This distinction between the Will proper, and the faculty of choices, is 
marked in Latin by the two words, Voluntas and Arbitrium ; and in that one 
of the modern tongues whose vocabulary for Philosophy is the richest of 
all, by the two words, Wille and WillkuJar. 



THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN. 



235 



of single choices which covers but a single point on the 
surface, and never goes below the surface ? — Would not 
a faculty comprehensive enough to include the whole 
man. and sufficiently deep and central to be the origin 
and basis of a nature, a character, a permanent moral 
state, be a very different faculty from that volitionary 
power whose activity is merely on the surface, and whose 
products are single resolutions, and transient volitions ? 

Now, by the Will, we mean such a faculty. We 
mean by it a voluntary power that lies at the very 
foundation of the human soul, constituting its central, 
active principle, containing the whole moral state, and 
all the moral affections. We mean by it a voluntary 
power that carries the whole inward being along with it 
when it moves ; a power, in short, which is the man 
himself — the ego, the person. 

It will be seen from this view, that the voluntary power 
in man is the deepest and most central power within 
him. We sometimes hear the human soul spoken of as 
composed fundamentally of Intellect and of Feeling, 
and only superficially of Will ; as if man were an Intel- 
lect at bottom, or a Heart at bottom, and then a WiD 
were superinduced as the executive of these. But thi? 
cannot be so, for man is a person, and the bottom of 
personality is free Will. Man at bottom is a Will — a 
self-determining creature — and his other faculties of 
knowing and feeling are grafted into this stock and 
root; and hence he is responsible from centre to circum- 
ference.* 

* This more capacious idea of the Will is the most common one in 
doctrinal history. " Voluntas est quippe in omnibus : imo omnes nihil 
aliud quam voluntates sunt. Nam quid est cupiditas, et laetitia, nisi voluntas 
in eorum consensionem qua volumus 1 Et quid est metus atque tristitia, 
nisi voluntas in dissensionem ab his quae nolumus." Aug. De civitate Dei, 
Lib. XIV., Cap. VI. 



236 



THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN. 



The Will, as thus defined, we affirm to be the respon- 
sible and guilty author of the sinful nature. Indeed, this 
sinful nature is nothing more nor less than the state of the 

" The Will is in the soul like the primum mobile in the heavens, that doth 
carry all the inferior orbs away with its own motion. This is the whole of 
a man ; a man is not what he knoweth. or what he remembereth, but what 
he Willeth. The Will is the Queen sitting upon its throne, exercising its 
dominion over the other parts of the soul. The Will is the proper seat of 
all our sin ; and if there could be a summum malum as there is a summum 
bonum, this would be in the Will." — Burgess. Original Sin. Part III. 
chap. XIV. Sec. 1. 

" In the Will, we are to conceive suitable and proportionate affections to 
those we call passions in the sensitive part. Thus, in the Will, (as it is a 
rational appetite,) there are love, joy, desire, fear, and hatred. * # # 
So that the Will loveth, the Will rejoiceth, and the Will desireth," etc. — 
Burgess. Part III. chap. IV. Sec. 2. 

" The heart in Scripture is variously used ; sometimes for the mind and 
understanding; sometimes for the Will; sometimes for the affections 5 some- 
times for the conscience ; sometimes for the whole soul. Generally it de- 
notes the whole soul of man, and all the faculties of it, not absolutely, hut 
as they are one principle of moral operations, as they all concur in our doing 
good cr eviV — Owen. Indwelling Sin. Chapter III. 

" And then, likewise, there is a consequent averse or transverse posture in 
the affections of the soul, whereof indeed, the Will is the seat and subject ; de- 
sires, fears, hopes, delights, anger, sorrow, all transversed in a quite con- 
trary course and being, to what they should be." — Howe's Oracles of God. 
Lcc. 25. Also compare pp. 1204, 1128, 891. New York Ed. 
. ."As to spiritual duties or acts, or any good thing in the state or imma- 
nent acts of the Will itself, or of the affections (which are only certain modes 
of the exercise of the Will), etc. — Edwards on the Will. Part III. Sec. 4. 

'• The Will, and the affections of the soul, are not two faculties ; the 
affections are not essentially distinct from the Will, nor do they differ from the 
mere actings of the Will, and inclination of the soul, but only in the liveliness 
and sensibleness of exercise." — Edwards on the Affections. Works, III. 
p. 3. 

Edwards everywhere dichotomizes. For example, speaking of the differ- 
ence between the knowledge of the natural man and that of the regenerate, 
he remarks: ' ; In the former is exercised merely the speculative faculty, or 
the understanding, strictly so called, or as spoken of in distinction from the 
Will, or disposition of the soul. In the latter, the Will, or inclination, or heart. 
\s mainly concerned." — Reality of Spiritual Light. Works, IV. 442. 

The terms " heart " and " will " are everywhere used as equivalents b^ 
Calvin. See e. g. Institutes. Book II. Chap. III. Sec. 5-11. 



THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN. 237 

Will; nothing more nor less than its constant and total 
determination to self, as the ultimate end of living'. This 
voluntary power lying at the bottom of the soul, as its 
elementary base, and carrying all the faculties and powers 
of 1he man along with it, whenever it moves, and wher- 
ever it goes, has turned away from God as an ultimate 
end , and this self-direction — this permanent and entire 
determination of itself — this state of the Will — is the 
sinful nature of man. 

Here then we have a depraved nature, and a depraved 
nature that is guilt, because it is a self-originated nature.* 
Here, then, is the child of wrath. Were this nature 
created and put into man, as an intellectual nature, or as 
a particular temperament, is put into him, by the Creator 
of all things, it would not be a responsible and guilty 
nature, nor would man be a child of wrath. But it does 
not thus originate. It has its origin in the free and res- 
ponsible use of that voluntary power which God has 
created and placed in the human soul, as its most central, 
most mysterious, and most hazardous endowment. It is 
a self-determined nature — i. e., a nature originated in a 
Will, and by a Will.j 

* To use a scholastic distinction — it is peccatum originans, and not 
merely originatum. 

t The Will is the principle, the next seat and cause of obedience and 
disobedience. Moral actions are unto us, or in us, so far good or evil as 
they partake of the consent of the Will. He spoke truth of old who said 
" Orane peccatum est adeo voluntarium, ut non sit peccatum nisi sit vol- 
untarium" — Owen, Indwelling Sin, Chapter XII. 

" I mean hereby those first acts of the soul which are thus far involuntary 
as that they have not the actual [i. e., deliberately conscious] consent of the 
Will to them ; but are voluntary, as far as sin has its residence in the Will. I 
know no greater burden in the life of a believer than these involuntary sur- 
pvisals of the soul ; involuntary, I say, as to the actual [i. e., deliberately 
conscious] consent of the Will, but not so in respect of that corruption which it 
in the Will, and is the principle of them. 

Owen, Indwelling Sin, Chapter VI. 



238 THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN. 

It will be apparent, from what has been said, that we 
regard the Arminian idea of the Will, and of self-deter- 
mination, to be altogether inadequate to the purpose 
intended by it. The motive of this school, we are charita- 
ble enough to believe, was in many instances a good one. 
It desired to vindicate the ways of God to man — to 
make man responsible for his character — but it ended in 
the annihilation of all sin except that of volitions^ of all 
sin except what is technically called actual sin, because 
its view of the Will was not profound enough. And as 
we wish to bring out into as clear a light as possible the 
difference between the Arminian self-determination, and 
what we suppose to be the true doctrine, let us for a 
moment exhibit the relation of both theories to " the 
doctrine of inability," as it is familiarly styled. 

According to the Arminian school, the Will is merely 
the faculty of choices ; and its action consists solely in 
volitions. Self-determination, consequently, is the ability 
to put forth a volition. Now, as a volition is confessedly 
under the arbitrary control of a man, it follows, that he 
has the ability to put forth (so-called) holy or sinful 
volitions at pleasure ; and inasmuch as no deeper action 
of the Will than this volitionary action is recognized in 
the scheme, it follows, that he has the ability to be holy 
or sinful at pleasure. This is the " power to the con- 
trary," which even sinful man has, although the more 

Owen, in the above extract plainly distinguishes between voluntary and 
volitionary action : between the immanent self-determination of the Voluntas, 
and the deliberate and conscious (" actual") action of the Arbilrium. The 
old writers often denominate the disposition or nature in the Will, activity. 
Owen speaks of the Christian affections as the '■'■actings'''' of the soul; e. g., 
" Christians are able to discern spiritual things, sweetly and genuinely to 
act faith, love, submission to God, and that in a high and eminent manner." 
(On Forgiveness Rule VI ). Edwards speaks of original sin as the "leading 
act, or inclination." 



THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN. 239 

thoughtful portion of the school freely acknowledge that 
it is never exercised, as matter of fact, except under the 
co-operating influence of the Holy Spirit. This view of 
the Will, and of self-determination, then, teaches theore- 
tically, at all events, the doctrine of man's ability to 
regenerate himself. There is no other action of the Will 
than that of single volitions, and over these man has 
arbitrary power. 

But the true idea of the Will, and of self-determination, 
while bringing man in guilty for his sinful nature and 
conduct, forbids the attribution to him of a self-regenera- 
ting power. According to the Arminian theory, all the 
action of the Will consists of volitions, and one volition 
being as much within the power of the man as another, 
a succeeding volition can at any moment reverse and 
undo the preceding. But, according to what we suppose 
to be the true view of the Will, there is an action of this 
voluntary power far deeper, and consequently far less 
easily managed than that of single choices. We have 
spoken of a deep and central action of the Will, which 
consists in the determination and tendency of the whole 
soul and of the soul as a whole, and which results in the 
origination of an inclination, a disposition, a nature, in 
distinction from a volition, or a resolution. We have 
spoken of a movement in the voluntary power that carries 
the whole inward being along with it. Now it is plain 
that such a power as this — including so much, and run- 
ning so deep — cannot, from the very nature of the case, 
be such a facile and easily managed power, as that by 
which we resolve to do some particular thing in every 
day life. While, therefore, we affirm that the Will, using 
the term in the comprehensive sense in which we have 
denned it, is a freely self-determined power, we deny, 
that having once taken its direction, it can reverse its 



240 THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN. 

motion by a volition or resolution. If the Will were 
only the faculty of choices or volitions, this might be the 
case ; but that deep under current, that central self-deter- 
mination, that great main tendency of the Will to self 
and sin as an ultimate end, cannot be reversed and over- 
come by any power less profound and central, to say the 
very least, than itself. Surface action cannot reverse and 
overcome central action. And we have only to take the 
Will as thus conceived, and steadily eye it in this free 
process of self-determination, to see that there is no power 
in this central tendency itself, from the very nature of the 
case, by which the direction of its movement can be 
altered. Take and hold the sinful Will of man, in this 
steady, this inmost, this total determination of itself to 
self as the ultimate end of its existence, and say how the 
power that is to reverse all this process can possibly come 
out of the Will, thus shut up, and entirely swallowed, in 
the process* How is the process to destroy itself, and 
turn into its own contrary ? How is Satan to cast out 
Satan ? Having once set itself, with all its energy, in a 
given direction, and towards a final end, the human Will 
becomes a current that is unmanageable — a power too 
strong for itself to turn back — not because of any com- 

*" The Will in the time of a leading act or inclination that is diverse from 
or opposite to the command of God, and when actually under the influence 
of it, is not able to exert itself to the contrary, to make an alteration in order to 
a compliance. The inclination is unable to change itself: and that for this 
plain reason that it is unable to incline to change itself. Present choice 
cannot at present choose to be otherwise : for that would be at present to 
choose something diverse from what is at present chosen. If the will, all 
things now considered, inclines or chooses to go that way, then it cannot 
choose, all things now considered, to go the other way, and so cannot 
choose to be made to go the other way. To suppose that the mind is now 
sincerely inclined to change itself to a different inclination, is to suppose 
the mind is now truly inclined otherwise than it is now inclined." 

Edwards on the Will, Part III. Section 4. 



THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN. ^41 

pulsion or stress from without, be it observed, but simply 
because of its own momentum and comprehensiveness — 
simply because of the obstinate and all-engrossing energy 
with which it is perversely going in the contrary direction. 
For the whole Will is determined, if determined at all. 
The depravity is total. Consequently, when a tendency 
or determination, as distinguished from a volition, has 
been taken, there is no remainder of uncommitted power 
in reserve, (as it were behind the existing determination 
or tendency,) by which the present moral state of the 
Will can be reversed. For this determination or per- 
manent state of the Will, as we have observed again and 
again, is something very different from a volition, which 
does not carry the whole soul along with it, and which 
therefore may be reversed by another volition back of it. 
When a determination has occurred, and a nature has 
been originated, the Will proper — the whole voluntary 
power — is in for it ; and hence, in the case of sin, the 
bondage in the very seat of freedom — the absolute ina- 
bility to be holy, springing out of, and identical with, the 
total determination to be evil — which is a self-determi- 
nation* 



* This non-returning character of the will, is noticed by that subtlest and 
most spiritual of the Schoolmen, Anselm. Justo namque judicio Dei 
decretum erat, et quasi chirographo confirmatum, ut homo, qui sponte 
peccaverat, nee peccatum, nee poenam peccati, per se vitare posset ; est 
enim spiritus (by which Anselm here means voluntas) vadens, et non rediens ; 
et qui facit peccatum, serous est peccati. 

Cur Deus Homo. Liber I. Cap. VII. 

It may be briefly remarked here, that the whole controversy respecting 
original Sin has turned upon the conception of voluntary action held by the 
disputing parties. In the Latin anthropology, this was, simply and only, 
the power of se/^-determination. That which is self-moved is voluntary, by 
virtue of this bare fact of self-motion. Neither the presence nor the absence 
of a power to the contrary, can destroy the existing fact that the will is 
moving spontaneously and without external compulsion, and hence the 



242 



THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN. 



It will be seen, that according to this theory, the free- 
dom of the Will does not consist in the ability to origin- 
ate a holy or sinful nature at any instant, and according 
to the caprice of the individual. It does not consist in 
the ability to determine itself to good or evil, as an ulti- 
mate end of existence, with the same facility and agility 
with which single choices can be exercised. It does not 
consist in an ability to jerk over from one moral state of 
the will, into a contrary moral state, at any moment, by 
a violent or a resolute effort. The doctrine of the free- 
dom of the Will does indeed require us to affirm that the 
Will is primarily and constantly se/f-moved — that its 
permanent tendency and character is not imposed upon 
it, as the tendency of the brute is imposed upon it, by the 
creative act; but the doctrine does not require us to 
affirm, that when the Will has once freely formed its 
character, and responsibly originated its nature, it can 
then, ad libitum, or by any power then possessed by it, 
form a contrary character, and originate an entirely con- 
trary nature within itself. All that is to be claimed is, 
that at the initial point in the history of the human Will, 
a free and responsible start shall be taken, a self-deter- 
mination shall begin and continue. It is not to be af- 
firmed, for it contradicts the experience of every man 
who has had any valuable experience upon this subject, 
that there is power in the will to cross and re-cross from 
a sinful to a holy state, and back again, at any moment — 

power to the contrary did not enter as a sine qua non into the Latin idea of 
moral agency. It might be lost, and actually had been, and the will still 
be a stiZ/'-determined faculty. In the Greek anthropology, on the contrary, 
voluntariness was /^determination. The will, whether fallen or unfallen 
at all times and in all conditions, could either choose or refuse the same 
object. But that it might do so, it must be itself in a state of equilibrium 
or indifferency, and not actually committed or determined either one way or the 
other. 



THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN. 243 

that the Will is in such an indifferent state in regard to 
the two great ultimate ends of action — God and self — 
that it stands affected in precisely the same way towards 
both, and by a volition can choose either at pleasure. 

(2.) The foregoing statement, it is hoped, will be suffi- 
cient to exhibit, so far as the limits of an article will 
allow, what is conceived to be the true idea of the Will, 
and of self-determination, in distinction from the Armi- 
nian view of them. We turn now to the relation of 
original sin to Adam, the head and representative of the 
race of mankind. There is not space to examine the 
passages of Scripture which speak of the connection of 
the individual with Adam. We shall assume, that such 
a connection is plainly taught in Scripture, particularly 
in the 5th chapter of Romans ; and at the same time 
barely call attention to the fact, that the soundest creeds 
of the Church, and that of the Westminster Assembly in 
particular, have all recognized the connection. Our 
object is to see if the views that have been presented will 
not throw some light upon one of the darkest points in 
speculative theology. 

It will be recollected, that in the first part of this 
article, it was shown that the deepest and ultimate form 
of sin is below the sphere of consciousness — that we are 
not conscious of the sinful nature, but only of what pro- 
ceeds from it. It will also be remembered, that this 
original sin, or sinful nature, has been traced to the Will 
as its originating cause, and thereby found to be a guilty 
nature. If, now, these two points have been made out, 
it follows as a corollary, that there is an action of the 
human Will deeper than the ordinary consciousness of 
man reaches. If man is not conscious of his sinful 
nature, and if, nevertheless, that nature is the product of 
his Will — is the very state of the Will itself — it follows, 



244 THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN. 

that his Will can put forth an action of which he is not 
conscious. And if this be so, it furthermore follows, that 
distinct consciousness is not an indispensable condition 
to the origin and existence of sin and guilt in the hu- 
man soul. 

We are as well aware as any body, that a statement 
like this seems to carry on the very face of it, not a mys- 
tery merely, but an absurdity. At first sight, it seems to 
be self-contradictory to affirm, that the responsible action 
of a free moral agent can go on in utter unconsciousness 
of the action — that the human Will can put forth its 
most important action, (action the most criminal, and 
the most tremendous in its consequences,) in a sphere 
too deep for the agent to know what he is doing. On 
the contrary, it seems to be plain as an axiom, that 
knowledge must in every instance precede action — that 
the Will cannot act without first distinctly knowing 
what it is going to do. And accordingly, this is the po- 
sition laid down in the beginning of all the current trea- 
tises on the Will. 

Now, without entering into any process of ratiocina- 
tion to support a mere theory, we wish to raise a simple 
question of fact. Is it, then, a fact, that man is conscious 
of all the action of his will ? Is it a fact, that from the 
commencement of his existence, on and down through 
every moment of his existence, he is unintermittently self- 
conscious of what he is all the while doing as a mora] 
agent? Is it a fact, that the impenitent sinner — the 
thoughtless sinner, as we so often call him in our sermons 
— is aivare every moment of what he is about ? No man 
will pretend that such is the fact. Saying nothing in 
regard to that deeper action of the Will, which we have 
denominated its determination, no one will say that a 
man is distinctly conscious of all his volitions even. * f 



THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN. 245 

each and every one of the millions of choices which he 
is exercising from the cradle to the grave. Even here, so 
near the surface of the soul, and with reference to its 
most palpable exercises, no one will be bold enough to 
affirm a distinct consciousness in every instance. Voli- 
tion after volition, choice after choice, is exercised by the 
unawakened, unanxious sinner, with all the unconscious- 
ness and mechanism, so to speak, with which the two 
thousand volitions by which he lifts his legs two thou- 
sand times in walking a single mile, are exercised.* 

Take the first sinful man you meet, and say how much 
of his daily existence goes on within the sphere of self- 
consciousness. During how many moments of the day 
is this moral agent aware of what he is doing, as a moral 
agent ? Of how many of the volitions which he puts 
forth in the attainment of his ends of living is he dis- 
tinctly conscious ? How many of his emotions are exer- 
cised in the clear light of self-consciousness, so that he has 
a distinct knowledge and sense of their moral character ? 
Is it not safe to say, that whole days, it may be whole 
weeks, and it may be whole months, pass in the lives of 
many men, during which there is not a single instant of 
distinct consciousness, in regard to the nature of the agen- 
cies going on within their souls ? And will it do to say, 
that all this while there is no action of the Will ? 

The truth is, we cannot lay aside pre-conceived opin- 
ions, and look at the simple facts of the case, without 
being compelled to the position, that there not only can 
be, but there actually is, action of the Will that is not 

* That the action in this instance is voluntary, in the sense that the mus- 
cles and limbs are moved ultimately by acts of the choice, is proved by the 
fact, that the man can stop walking. If it were strictly mechanical and in> 
voluntary, the walker must go on like a clock until his ambulatory appara 
tus ran down. 



246 THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN. 

self-conscious action, and a vast amount of it. And this 
too, whether the Will be regarded as the volitionary or 
as the voluntary faculty. If we believe the Scripture 
doctrine, that man is evil continually, we must also be- 
lieve, that the Will of man is in continual action — ab- 
sorbed in an uninterrupted tendency and determination 
to self. The motion — the kivy](ti^, — is incessant. But 
we know from observation, and as a matter of fact T that 
man is not distinctly conscious of a thousandth part of 
this process, which is nevertheless steadily going on, 
whether he thinks of it or not, whether he is aware of it 
or not. If, now, while affirming, as we must, that there is 
no responsible action but action of the Will, we also affirm, 
as we must not, that there is no action of the Will but 
conscious action, we remove responsibility from the 
greater part of human life. Responsibility and criminal- 
ity would, in this case, cleave only to that comparatively 
infinitesimal part of a man's life during which he sinned 
deliberately, and with the consciousness that he was sin- 
ning. Furthermore, it would follow, from this doctrine, 
that the more entire the man's absorption in evil — the 
more thoughtless and unconscious his life became in re- 
gard to sin — the less responsible he would be ; the more 
depraved, the less guilty. 

But in this instance again, as in a former, whatever 
may be our theory, we do practically acknowledge the 
truth of the doctrine of the responsible action of the 
human Will, even when there is, or has been, no distinct 
consciousness of it. The great aim of every awakening 
sermon that we preach, is to bring the sinner to the distinct 
perception of what he is, and is doing-, as a free moral 
agent. And observe, the aim of the sermon is not simply to 
aid the memory of the sinner — to furnish him an inven- 



THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN. 247 

tory or catalogue of his past transgressions — but, in the 
strict meaning of the expressive phrase, to bring' him to — 
to bring him to himself. The object of every awakening 
sermon, and the end had in view by the Holy Spirit 
when He sets it home, is to bring the sinner to a distinct 
self-consciousness in regard to sin — to make him realize 
the awful truth, that during his whole past life of thought- 
lessness and unconsciousness of what he has been, and 
been about, his "Will has been active, and that from the 
inmost centre to the outward circumference, this action 
has been criminal ; and still more than this, to make him 
realize, that noiv, at this very instant, his Will is set- 
ting itself with a deep, and as yet to him ; unconscious 
determination towards evil, as an ultimate end of action. 
The object of conviction, in short, is to impart to the 
sinner a conscious knowledge of that sin, the major part 
of which came into existence without his conscious 
knowledge, but by no means without his W r ill. 

We need only take a passage that frequently occurs 
in the common Christian experience to see the truth of 
the view here presented. How often the Christian finds 
himself already in a train of thought, or of feeling, that 
is contrary to the divine law. Notice that he did not go 
into this train of thought or feeling deliberately, and with 
a distinct consciousness of what he was doing. The 
first he knows is, that he is already caught in the pro- 
cess. Thought and feeling in this instance have been 
unconsciously exercised in accordance with that central 
and abiding determination of the Will towards self, of 
which we have spoken ; in other words, the Will has 
been unconsciously putting forth its action, in and through 
the powers of thought and feeling, as the self-reproach 
and sense of guilt consequent upon such exercises of the 



248 



THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN. 



soul, are proof positive.* The moment the Christian 
man comes to distinct consciousness in regard to this ac- 
tion that has been going on, " without his thinking of 
it," (as we say in common parlance,) he acknowledges it 
as criminal action, responsible action, action of the 
Will. The fact that he was not thinking — that the 
Will was acting unconsciously — subtracts nothing from 
his sense of guilt in the case. 

And if there is unconscious action of the Will in these 
instances, which occur in the every-day experience of 
the individual Christian, much more should we expect 
to find unconscious action in the case of that deepest 
and primal movement of the Will which is denominated 
the Fall. If, in the instance of the development or un- 
folding of sin, there is much of this unconscious volun- 
tary action, much more should we expect to find it in 
that instance when the profound basis itself, for this de- 
velopment, was laid. If there is mystery in the stalk 
above ground, much more must we expect to find it in 
the dark long root under ground. The fall of the human 
Will unquestionably occurs back of consciousness, and in 
a region beyond the reach of it. Certainly no one of 
the posterity of Adam was ever conscious of that act 
whereby his Will fell from God ; and even with regard 
to Adam himself, the remark of Augustine is true — 
that he had already fallen before he ate the forbidden 
fruit. This remark is strictly true, and characterized by 
those two traits in which Augustine never had a supe- 
rior — depth and penetration. The act of conscious 
transgression in the case of Adam sprung from an evil 

* It is evident that there may be thinking without thinking of thinking, 
as there maj T be acting without thinking of acting. In these instances there 
isboth thought and action without self-consciousness of either. 



THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN. 249 

nature that had already been unconsciously generated in 
his Will. He would not have eaten of the tree, if he 
had not in his soul already fallen from God. 

We may, in this connection, add furthermore, that the 
other great change which occurs in the human Will — ■ 
viz., its renovation by the Holy Spirit, and its determi- 
nation to God as an ultimate end, consequent thereon — ■ 
also occurs below the sphere of consciousness. All ac- 
knowledge that there is no consciousness of the regenerat- 
ing act itself, but only of its consequences ; and yet even 
the most careful theologian must acknowledge, that there 
is action of the Will of some sort in this instance ; that 
the renovating action is in the Will and in accordance 
with its freedom, though by no means, as in the case of 
sin, to be referred solely to the Will. 

Enough has been said to show, that, unless we would 
unclothe most of human existence of its responsibility, 
we must assume the possibility and reality of an action 
of the Will, which is unaccompanied by distinct con- 
sciousness on the part of the individual man. And this 
is eminently true of that deepest action of the Will, 
by which a nature is generated, and a character is origi- 
nated. That action of the human Will, which is denom- 
inated its fall, which lies under the whole sinful history 
and development of the individual man — which is 
the ground and source of all his conscious transgres- 
sion — is, without contradiction, unconscious action. The 
moral consciousness of man, taken at its very rise, is the 
consciousness of guilt — which fact shows that the re- 
sponsible action, lying under it, as its just cause and 
valid ground, has already occurred. If there is any guilt 
in falling from God, the human soul incurs that guilt in 
every instance, without distinct consciousness of the process 
by which it is brought about If the origination of a sinful 



250 THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN. 

nature — of an abiding wrong state of the Will — is a crim- 
inal procedure on the part of the soul, and justly exposes 
it to the Divine Anger, it is yet a procedure that occurs 
unconsciously to the soul itself. And in saying this, we 
are manufacturing no theory, but simply setting forth the 
simple actual facts of the case. There is no avoiding the 
conclusion, unless we are bold enough to affirm that only 
that portion of a sinner's life is responsible and guilty, 
during which he sins deliberately, and with the con- 
sciousness that he is sinning. 

We have called attention to this fact, that the human 
Will can and does put forth its deepest action below the 
sphere of consciousness, to prepare the way for the in- 
vestigation of the connection of original sin, as found in 
each individual, with the fall of Adam. If this hypo- 
thesis of the unconscious action of the Will has been 
established, the only serious objection will have been re- 
moved, that can be made to what we suppose is the 
Scriptural statement of the doctrine of the connec- 
tion of the individual with Adam, contained in the West- 
minster Assembly's Catechism. According to the form 
of doctrine laid down by that body of profound and 
learned divines, each individual of the human race is 
supposed to have been in some way responsibly present 
in Adam, and responsibly sharing in his apostasy from 
God. The statement in the creed which they drew up, 
is as follows : — " The covenant being made with Adam, 
not only for himself but for his posterity, all mankind 
descending from him by ordinary generation sinned in 
him and fell vnth Mm in his first transgression." And 
the two strongest texts which they cite in proof of the 
truth of their creed, are these : " By one man's disobe- 
dience, many were made sinners." (Rom 5 : 19.) " In 
Adam all die." (1 Cor. 15 : 22.) 



THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN. 251 

Now it is to be remembered, that these men were 
making distinct and scientific statements, and their lan- 
guage, consequently, is not to be regarded as merely 
metaphorical. It must, therefore, be understood in the 
same way that scientific language is always to be un- 
derstood — be taken in its literal meaning, unless a 
palpable contradiction or absurdity is involved in so 
doing. In this doctrinal and scientific statement, then, 
it is affirmed, that all men sinned in Adam, and fell 
with Adam in his first transgression. This implies and 
teaches that all men were, in some sense, co-existent in 
Adam, otherwise they could not have sinned in him. It 
teaches that all men were, in some sense, co-agent in 
Adam, otherwise they could not have fallen with him. 
The mode of this co-existence and co-agency of the 
whole human race in the first man, they do not, it is 
true, attempt to set forth ; but their language distinctly 
implies that they believed there was such a co-existence 
and co-agency, whether it could be explained or not. 
They regarded Adam not merely as an individual, but 
as a common person ; as having a generic as well as in- 
dividual character. They taught that he was substan- 
tially the race of mankind, and that his whole posterity 
existed in him. Consequently, whatever befell Adam, 
befell the race. In Adam's fall, the race fell. And what 
is to be particularly noted is, that they did not regard 
the fall of Adam considered as an individual, as any 
more guilty than the fall of each and every one of 
his posterity, or that original sin was any the less guilt 
in his posterity than it was in him. So far as responsi- 
bility was concerned, Adam and his posterity were all 
alike guilty of apostasy. They were all involved in a 
common condemnation, because they were all alike con- 
current in the fall. The race fell in Adam, and conse* 



252 THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN. 

quently each individual of the race was in some mysteri- 
ous yet real manner, existent in this common parent of 
all.* 



* This phraseology is not to be understood as implying that the indivi- 
dual is in the genus as a distinct individual. Adam, as the generic man, 
was not a mere receptacle containing millions of separate individuals. 
The genus is not an aggregation, but a single, simple, essence. As such, it 
is not yet characterized by individuality. It, however, becomes varied and 
manifold by being individualized in its propagation, or development into a 
series. The individual consequently (with the exception of the first man, 
who is immediately created, and is both individual and generic) is al- 
ways the result of propagation, and not of creation. In the instance of 
man, the creation proper is the origination of the generic species, which 
species is individualized in its propagation under the preserving, and provi- 
dential, (but not now creating,) agency of the Creator. The individual, as 
such, is consequently only a subsequent modus existendi ; the first and ante- 
cedent mode being the generic humanity, of which this subsequent serial 
mode is only another aspect or manifestation. Had the members of tho 
series of human generations existed in their proper individuality in the pro- 
genitor, there would have been no need of the subsequent process of indivi- 
dualization, or propagation. 

The doctrine of Traducianism is unquestionably more accordant with 
that of original sin than that of Creationism, and the only reason why Au- 
gustine, and others after him, hesitated with regard to its formal adoption, 
was its supposed incompatibility with the doctrine of the soul's immaterial- 
ity and immortality. If, however, the distinction between creation and 
development be clearly conceived and rigorously observed, it will be seen 
that there is no danger of materialism in the doctrine of the soul's propaga- 
tion. For development cannot change the essence of that which is being 
developed. It must unfold that, and only that, which is given in creation. 
Now, granting the creation of the generic man in his totality of soul and 
body, it is plain that his mere individualization by propagation must leave 
both his physical and spiritual natures as it found them, so far as this dis- 
tinction between mind and matter is concerned. For matter cannot be 
converted into mind by mere expansion, and neither can mind be changed 
into matter by it. Both parts of man will, therefore, preserve their origin- 
al created qualities and characteristics in this process of propagation, or in- 
dividualizing of the generic, which is conducted, moreover, beneath the pre- 
serving and providential agency of the Creator. That which is flesh will 
be propagated as flesh, and that which is spirit will be propagated as spirit, 
and this because mere propagation, or development, cannot change the kind 
or essence. If, therefore, it is conceded that the creation of maa was com- 



THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN. 253 

It is on this ground that they taught that original sin 
is real sin — is guilt. The sinful nature they held, could 
be properly charged upon every child of Adam, as a na- 
ture for which he, and not his Creator, was responsible, 
and which rendered him obnoxious to the eternal dis- 
pleasure of God — even though, as in the case of infants 
dying before the dawn of self-consciousness, this nature 
should never have manifested itself in conscious trans- 
gression. Every child of Adam fell from God, in Adam, 
and together with Adam, and therefore is justly charge- 
able with all that Adam is chargeable with, and precise- 
ly on the same ground, viz., on the ground that his fall 
was not necessitated, but self-determined. For the Will 
of Adam was not the Will of a single isolated indivi- 
dual merely : it was also, and besides this, the Will of 
the human species — the human Will generically. If he 
fell freely, so did his posterity — yet not one after an- 
other, and each by himself, as the series of individuals, 
in which the one seminal human nature manifests itself, 
were born into the world, but all together and all at 
once, in that first transgression, which stands a most 
awful and awfully pregnant event at the beginning of 
human history. 

The aim of the Westminster symbol accordingly, and, 
it may be added, of all the creeds on the Augustinian 
side of the controversy, was to combine two elements, 
each having truth in it — to teach the fall of the human 
race as a unity, and, at the same time, recognize the ex- 
istence, freedom, and guilt of the individual in the fall. 
Accordingly they locate the individual in Adam, and 

plete, involving the origination from non-entity of the entire humanity as a 
synthesis of matter and mind, flesh and spirit, then it follows that mere 
propagation, taking him up at this point, cannot change the essence upon 
either side of the complex being, but can only individualize it. 



254 



THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN. 



make him, in some mysterious but real manner, a re 
sponsible partaker in Adam's sin — a guilty sharer, and, 
in some solid sense of the word, co-agent in a common 
apostasy. As proof of this assertion, we shall quote 
from a few of the leading authors on this side of the 
great controversy. 

Augustine, although the first to philosophize upon this 
difficult point, in order to bring it within the limits of a 
doctrinal system, has, nevertheless, as it seems to us, not 
been excelled by any of his successors in the profundity 
and comprehensiveness of his views. He is explicit in 
teaching the oneness of the human race in Adam, and 
of the fall of Adam and his posterity in the first trans- 
gression. In his work on the desert and remission of 
sin, he says : " All men at that time sinned in Adam, 
since, in his nature, all men were as yet that one man." * 
And the sentiment is repeated still more distinctly in 
that most elaborate of his treatises — De Civitate Dei ; a 
work which was the fruit of mature reason, and ripe 
Christian experience, and which, notwithstanding the 
crudity of some of its speculations on subjects pertain- 
ing to the sensuous nature of man, and to the physical 
nature generally, is unrivalled for the depth and clear- 
ness of its insight into all that is distinctively and pure- 
ly spiritual. " We were all in that one man, since we 
were all that one man, who lapsed into sin through that 
woman, who was made from him previous to trans- 
gression. The form in which we were to live as individ- 
uals had not been created and assigned to us, man by man, 
but that seminal nature was in existence, from which we 
were to be propagated." f In the words of Neander, 

* In Adamo omnes tunc peccaverunt, quando in ejus natura adhuc omnes 
ille unus fuerunt. — De pec. mer. et rem. III. 7. 

t Omnes enim fuimus in illo uno, quando omnes fuimus ille unus, qui 



THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN. ZDD 

" Augustine, supposed not only that that bondage, undei 
the principle of sin, by which sin is its own punishment, 
was transmitted by the progenitor of the human race to 
his posterity ; but also that the first transgression, as an 
act, was to be imputed to the whole human race — that 
the guilt and the penalty were propagated from one to 
all. This participation of all in Adam's transgression, 
Augustine made clear to his own mind in this way : 
Adam was the representative of the whole race, and 
bore in himself the entire human nature and kind, in 
germ, since it was from him that it unfolded itself. And 
this theory would easily blend with Augustine's specula- 
tive form of thought, as he had appropriated to himself 
the Platonico- Aristotelian realism, in the doctrine of 
general conceptions, and conceived of general conceptions 
as the original types of the kind realized in individual 
things." * 

Calvin, though not so explicit as his predecessor Au- 
gustine, or as some of his successors, in regard to the 
precise nature of the individual's connection with Adam, 
yet leaves no doubt in the mind of the reader that he be- 
lieved in the original oneness of Adam and his posterity, 
in the act of apostasy. He says : " It is certain that 
Adam was not only the progenitor, but, as it were, the 
root of mankind, and therefore all the race were necessa- 
rily vitiated in his corruption." Again he says : " He 
who pronounces that we were all dead in Adam, does also, 
at the same time, plainly declare that we were implica- 
ted in the guilt of his sin. For no condemnation could 

per feminam lapsus est in peccatum, qua? de illo facta est ante peccatum. 
Nondum erat nobis singillatim creata et distributa forma, in qua singulj 
viveremus: sed jam natura erat seminalis ex qua propagaremur. — Do Civ 
Dei. XIII. 14. 
* Torrey's Neander, II. 609. 



256 



THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN. 



reach those who were perfectly clear from all charge of 
iniquity," [as Adam's posterity would be, were each and 
every man merely a distinct and isolated individual, ex- 
isting entirely by himself.] Again he says : " No other 
explanation, therefore, can be given of our being said to 
be in Adam, than that his transgression not only procur- 
ed misery and ruin for himself, but also precipitated our 
nature into similar destruction ; and that not by his per- 
sonal guilt as an individual, which pertains not to us, 
but because he infected all his descendants with the cor- 
ruption into which he had fallen."* 

John Owen is more explicit still, and he unquestion- 
ably reflects the views of the "Westminster divines, to 
say nothing of his general profundity and clearness on 
all points of systematic theology. In his treatise, enti- 
tled " A Display of Arminianism," f in connection with 
some other answers to the objection that original sin is 
not voluntary, and therefore cannot be sin in the sense of 
guilt, he expressly affirms that it is voluntary, in some 
sense of that word — that it has the element of free self- 
determination in it. " But, thirdly," he says, " in respect 
to our wills, we are not thus innocent neither, for we all 
sinned in Adam, as the apostle affirmeth. Now all sin is 
voluntary, say the remonstrants, [the party whom Owen 
was opposing, but whose statement in this case he was 
willing to grant,] and therefore Adam's transgression 
was our voluntary sin also, and that in divers respects ; 
first, in that his voluntary act is imputed to us as ours, 
by reason of the covenant which was made with him in 
our behalf; but because this consisting in an imputation 
must needs be extrinsical to us ; therefore, secondly, we 

* Institutes, Book II. Chapter 1. Allen's Trans* 
t Works, V. 127. Russell's Ed. 



THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN. 257 

say that Adam, being the root and head of all human 
kind, and we all branches from that root, all parts of that 
body whereof he was the head, his will may be said to 
be ours ; we were then all that one man, (omnes eramus 
unus ille homo, Aug.,) we were all in him, and had no 
other will but his; so that though that (viz., Adam's will) 
be extrinsical unto us, considered as particular persons, 
yet it (viz., Adam's will) is intrinsical, as we are all parts 
of one common nature ; as in him we sinned, so in him 
we had a will of sinning." Tn a passage in his " Vindi- 
ciae Evangelicse," * he also says, "By Adam sin entered 
into the world, so that all sinned in him, and are made 
sinners thereby — so that also his sin is called the ' sin 
of the world ; ' in him all mankind sinned, and his sin is 
imputed to them." f 

* Works, VIII. p. 222. Kussell's Ed. 

t This same reasoning, from the basis of realism, is seen in John Robin- 
son, the pastor of the Plymouth Pilgrims. In his "Defence of the doctrine 
of the Synod of Dort," he answers the question, Did infants sin in Adam 1 
— in the affirmative, on the ground that they " had being in Adam after a 
sort, namely, so far as they were in him- If they had being in Adam any 
way, they had life also in him ; for nothing in Adam was dead, but all 
living; their being, therefore, so far as it was in him, was a living being." 
This ' being,' Robinson goes on to argue, was that of a rational existence 
composed of understanding and will. — Robinson's Works, I. 404 et seq. 
Congregational Board's Ed. 

Leigh, a graduate of Magdalen Hall, Oxford, published a system of divin- 
ity in 1654, which has the imprimatur of Edmund Calamy. In it we find 
the following : 

" The first Adam represented all mankind, and the second all the elect 
God might as well ground an imputation on a natural, as on a mystical, union 
Omnes eramus unus ille homo, (Augustine) ; therefore the sin of that one man 
is the sin of us all. 

" Objection. This sin of Adam, being but one, could not defile the uni- 
versal nature. Socinus. 

"Answer. Adam had in him the whole nature of mankind, 1 Cor. 15: 
47; by one offence the whole nature of man was defiled, Rom. 5 : 12, 17. 

" Objection. Adam's sin was not voluntary in us, we never gave consent 
to it. 

° Answer. There is a two-fold will. 1. Voluntas naturae, the whole nature 



258 THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN. 

One more quotation shall suffice, in corroboration of 
the view presented of the oneness of Adam and his pos- 
terity, in respect both to the act and the guilt of apos- 
tasy, and this shall be from Jonathan Edwards. In his 
treatise upon original sin, after citing the passage, " By 
one man sin entered into the world," he adds, " this pas- 
sage implies that sin became universal in the world, and 
not merely (which would be a trifling insignificant asser- 
tion) that one man, who was made first, sinned first, be- 

of man was represented in Adam, therefore the will of nature was sufficient 
to convey the sin of nature. 2. Voluntas personae, hy every actual sin we 
justify Adam's breach of covenant. Rom. 5 : 12, 19 seems clear for the im- 
putation of Adam's sin. All were in Adam, and sinned in him, as, after 
Augustine, Beza doth interpret if & in Rom. 5:12; and so our last trans- 
lators in the margent. And though it be rendered, ' for that all have sin- 
ned,' by us, the Syriac, Erasmus, Vatablus, Calvin, and Piscatorius, yet must 
it be so understood that all have sinned in Adam. For otherwise, it is not true 
that all upon whom death hath passed have sinned, as namely infants newly born. 
It is not said all are sinners, but, all have sinned, which imports an imputa- 
tion of Adam's act unto his posterity. 

" Some divines do not differ so much re as modo loquendi about this point. 
They grant the imputation of Adam's sin to his posterity, in some sense, 
so as that there is a communication of it with them, and the guilt is charg- 
ed upon them, yet they deny the imputation of it to posterity as it was 
Adams's personal sin. But it is not to be considered as Adam's personal 
sin, but as the sin of all mankind, whose person Adam did then represent. 
Adam's personal sin did infect the whole nature, and ever since the nature 
hath infected the personal actions." — Leigh's Body of Divinity, Book IV. 
Chap. 1. 

" The whole history of the first man evinces, that he was not looked upon 
as an individual person, but that the whole human nature was considered 
in him. For it was not said to our first parents only, Increase and multiply ; 
bv virtue of which words the propagation of the human race is still contin- 
ued ; nor is it true of Adam only, It is not good that man should be alone ; nor 
does that conjugal law concern him alone, Therefore shall a man leave his 
father and his mother, and these two shall be one flesh ; which Christ still urges 
(Mt. 19:5); nor did the penalty, which God threatened to Adam in case of 
sin, affect him alone, Dying thou shalt die; but death passed upon all men, as 
the Apostle observes. All which loudly proclaim, that Adam was here 
considered as the head of mankind." — Witsius on the Co\enants, II. 14. 



THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN. 259 

fore other men sinned ; or that it did not so happen that 
many men began to sin just together at the same mo- 
ment." " The latter part of the verse" (he goes on to say) 
' and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, 
for that all have sinned,' shows that in the eye of the 
Judge of the world, in Adam's first sin all sinned ; not 
only in some sort, but all sinned so as to be exposed to 
that death and final destruction, which is the proper ivages 
of 'sin"* In another chapter of this treatise he combats the 
objection made against the imputation of Adam's sin to 
his posterity " that such imputation is unjust and un- 
reasonable, inasmuch as Adam and his posterity are not 
one and the same," (one of the principal objections to 
the doctrine, and a fatal one, if it can maintained). He 
combats it by denying the truth of the affirmation, that 
Adam and his posterity are not one and the same, and 
by establishing the contrary position by as profound and 
truthful a course of speculation as ever emanated from his 
mind. " I think," (he says) " it would go far towards 
directing us to the more clear and distinct conceiving and 
right stating of this affair, (of original sin,) were we 
steadily to bear this in mind : that God, in each step of 
his proceeding with Adam, in relation to the covenant 
or constitution established with him, looked on his pos- 
terity as being one with him. * * * Therefore, I am 
humbly of opinion, that if any have supposed the chil- 
dren of Adam to eome into the world with a double 
guilt : one, the guilt of Adam's sin ; another, the guilt 
arising from their having a corrupt heart, they have not 
so well conceived of the matter. The guilt a man has on 
his soul at his first existence is one and simple, viz., the 
guilt of the original apostasy, the guilt of the sin^by 

* The italics are Edwards's, and the italics of Edwards are always sig 
nificant. 



260 THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN. 

which the species first rebelled from God, * * The 
first existing of a corrupt disposition in the hearts of 
Adam's posterity is not to be looked upon as sin belong- 
ing to them, distinct from their participation of Adam's 
first sin: it is, as it were, the extended pollution of that sin, 
through the whole tree, by virtue of the constituted union 
of the branches with the root ; or the inherence of the sin 
of that head of the species in the members, in the con- 
sent and concurrence of the hearts of the members, 
with the head in that first act." Edwards also quotes 
with approbation the following from Stapfer : " It is ob- 
jected against the imputation of Adam's sin, that we 
never committed the same sin with Adam, neither in 
number nor in kind. I answer, we should distinguish 
here between the physical act itself, which Adam com- 
mitted, and the morality of the action and consent to it. 
If we have respect only to the external act, to be sure it 
must be confessed that Adam's posterity did not put 
forth their hands to the forbidden fruit : in which sense 
that act of transgression, and that fall of Adam, cannot 
be physically one with the sin of his posterity. But if 
we consider the morality of the action, [i. e. the volun- 
tary ground of it,] and what consent there is to it, it is 
altogether to be maintained that his posterity committed 
the same sin both in number and in kind, inasmuch as 
they are to be looked upon as consenting to it : for where 
there is a consent to a sin, there the same sin is commit- 
ted. Seeing, therefore, that Adam, with all his poster- 
ity, constitute but one moral person, and are united in 
the same covenant, and are transgressors of the same 
law, they are also to be looked upon as having, in a 
moral estimation, committed the same transgression of 
the law both in manner and in kind." Edwards finally 
remarks, that all the objections that can be brought 



THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN. 261 

against the doctrine of the imputation of Adam's sin to 
his posterity, are summed up in this assumption and 
assertion — viz., that Adam and his posterity are not 
originally one, but are from first to last entirely distinct 
and individual agents : this assumption he earnestly de- 
nies, and enters into a long and subtle investigation, well 
worthy any man's study, of what is meant by personal 
identity, to show that there is no absurdity or contradic- 
tion in the hypothesis, that, by the divine establishment 
and constitution, all of Adam's posterity were, in some 
real and important sense, in him and one with him.* 

Any one who will take the pains to study the history 
of the doctrine of original sin, and to trace its develop- 
ment, will find that the more profound minds in the Chris- 
tian church have ever sought to relieve the subject of 
those difficulties which encompass it, by this doctrine of 
the oneness of Adam with his posterity. A mystery 
overhangs, and, perhaps, ever must overhang the nature 
and possibility of this oneness ; but this mystery being 
once waived, or put up with by the mind, the principal 
difficulties that beset the doctrine of a sinful nature orig- 
inated antecedently to all consciousness, and beginning 
to manifest itself in the case of every individual with the 
first dawn of self-consciousness, disappear. Granting 
the possibility and the fact of the individual's fall in 
Adam and with Adam, then it is easy to see how this 
fall can be charged as guilt upon the individual, and the 
sinful nature be truly and really a self-determined and 
responsible nature, deserving and incurring the wrath of 
God. Original sin, by this hypothesis, is seen to be the 
work of the creature, and not the Creator, the chief pecu- 
liarity in this case being, that it was originated by the 

* Edwards on Original Sin. Part IV. Chap. 3. 



262 THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN. 

whole race, and for the whole race, not as it exists in the 
historical series of its individual members, but as it existed 
a seminal and common nature in the first man. 

With regard to the possibility of such a co-existence 
of Adam and his posterity, little can be said, although 
the more the mind reflects upon the subject, the less sur- 
prising does it seem. One thing is certain, that the 
mysteriousness of the subject has not deterred the human 
mind from receiving the doctrine. We see the clearest 
and deepest minds of the church, men of unquestioned 
intellectual power, and of profound insight into their own 
hearts, drawn, as by a spell, to this hypothesis, as the 
best theory by which to free the doctrine of original sin 
from its principal difficulties : and this fact of itself con- 
stitutes a strong ground for the belief that the truth lies 
in this direction. 

1. We would merely call attention, however, to the 
fact, that the doctrine of the oneness and co-existence of 
the race in the first man, by no means contradicts what 
we know from physiology, but rather finds a corrobora- 
tion from it. When the first individuals of a new species 
are created out of nothing by the Creator of all things, 
the species, as well as these individuals, is created. The 
remaining individuals of the species — the posterity of 
the first pair — do not come into existence each by a 
new fiat, like that which called the first into being, but 
by a propagation. The primordial elements of all the 
individuals of the series are created, when the first pair 
of the species is created, and then are developed into a 
series of individuals. Any catastrophe, therefore, any 
radical change that befalls these first individuals, affects 
the whole species, and in precisely the same way. If 
that science, whose business it is to investigate the nature 
and mutual relations of the species and the individual. 



THE DOCTRTNE OF ORIGINAL SIN. 263 

and to give an account of the development of the crea- 
tion of God, teaches anything, it teaches this. 

2. The other principal objection — that the individual 
was never conscious of this fall in Adam — has been 
removed by what has been advanced in regard to the 
possibility of a voluntary action that is deeper than con- 
sciousness. If there can be, and actually is, action of 
the human Will, unaccompanied by self-consciousness, 
then it is not absurd or self-contradictory to affirm that 
the Will of the whole species, generically including the 
Will of every individual within it, fell in the first man. 

The doctrine of original sin, then, as stated in the 
Westminster Catechism taken in its strict and literal 
acceptation, we deem to be in accordance with the 
teaching of Scripture on this subject. Only put up with 
the inexplicability of the oneness, and co-existence, of 
Adam and his posterity — only grant this assumption, 
which all the analogies in the world of physical nature, 
and all the investigations of physiology, yet seem to cor- 
roborate — and we can hold to a sinful nature, and a 
sinful nature that is guilt. We know of no other theory 
that does not in the end, either reduce sin to a minimum, 
by recognizing no sin but that of single volitions, or else, 
while asserting a sinful nature, does it at the expense of 
human freedom and responsibility. And surely a theory 
which removes the real and honest difficulties that cling 
to one of the most vexed questions in theology, ought not 
to be rejected merely on the ground of a mystery that 
attaches to one of its parts. Manifest absurdity and self- 
contradiction would be the only valid grounds for reject- 
ing it ; and these, we think, cannot be fixed upon it. 

In conclusion, we would say, that we cannot think, 
with some, that such speculations into a difficult doctrine 
like that of original sin, are valueless — that they merel) 



26± 



THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN. 



baffle the mind and harden the heart. "We rise from thia 
investigation with a more profound belief than ever, in 
the doctrine of the innate and total depravity of man — 
of his bondage to evil, and his guilt in this bondage. It 
is only when we turn away our eye from the particular 
exhibitions of sin to that evil nature that lies under them 
all, and lies under them all the while — it is only when 
we turn away from what we do to what we are — that we 
become filled with that deep sense of guilt, that profound 
self-abasement, before the infinite purity of God, and that 
utter self-despair, which alone fit us to be the subjects 
of renewing and sanctifying grace. If the church and 
the ministry of the present day need any one thing more 
than another, it is profound views of sin ; and if the cur- 
rent theology of the day is lacking in any one thing, it is 
in that thorough-going, that truly philosophic, and, at the 
same time, truly edifying theory of sin, which runs like a 
strong muscular cord through all the soundest theology 
of the church. 



THE ATONEMENT, A SATISFACTION FOR THE 
ETHICAL NATURE OF BOTH GOD AND MAN.* 



It is a very important question whether, in the recon- 
ciliation of man with God, the change of feeling and 
relationship that confessedly occurs between the parties, 
is solely upon the side of man, or whether that method 
which proposes to bring about peace and harmony be- 
tween the sinner and his Judge, contains a provision 
that refers immediately to the being and ethical nature 
of God. Is the Divine Essence absolutely passive, and 
entirely unaffected by the propitiatory death of Christ, 
and is all the movement and affection that occurs con- 
fined to human nature ; or is there in the Godhead itself, 
by virtue of its essential nature and quality, something 
that requires a judicial satisfaction for sin, and which, 
when satisfied, produces the specific sense of satisfaction, 
or, to use a biblical term, of " propitiation," in the Deity 
himself? In short, is the reconciliation of man with God 
merely and wholly subjective, an occurrence in the 
human soul but no real event and fact in the Divine 
Mind ? Is the sinner merely reconciled to God, God 
remaining precisely the same towards him that He is 
irrespective of the work of Christ, and antecedent to his 
appropriation of that work ; or does God first, by and 

* Reprinted from the Bibliotheca Sacra, Oct. 1859. 



266 THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 

through a judicial infliction of his own providing, and 
his own enduring in the person of the Son, — Himself 
the judge, Himself the priest, Himself the sacrifice, — 
conciliate his own holy justice towards the guilty, and 
thereby lay the foundation for the consciousness of recon- 
ciliation in the penitent?* 

The phraseology of scripture teaches, beyond a doubt, 
that the transaction of reconciliation is not confined ex- 
clusively to human nature. We are told, for example, 
by the apostle John, that " Jesus Christ the righteous is 
the propitiation for our sins." f Propitiation is the strong 
word employed to denote the real nature of Christ's 
work by that mild and loving apostle whose intuition 
of Christianity some biblical critics would array against 
that of Paul, and in whose writings they profess to find 
only the doctrine of spiritual life and sanctification, and 
not that of expiation and justification. But this term 
certainly implies two parties, — an offending and an 



* That God, in the work of atonement, is both the first cause and last 
end, or, in other words, at once the propitiating and the offended party, is 
plainly taught in such texts as 2 Cor. v. 18, and Coloss. i. 20 : " God hath 
reconciled us to Himself, by Jesus Christ. It pleased God ... by 
Christ to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the 
blood of his cross." Augustine notices this fact in the following manner : 
" How hast Thou loved us, for whom He that thought it no robbery to be 
equal with Thee, was made subject even to the death of the cross, He alone, 
free among the dead, having power to lay down His life, and power to take 
it again ; for us, to Thee, both victor and victim, and therefore victor because 
the victim ; for us, to Thee, both priest and sacrifice, and therefore priest 
because the sacrifice." — Confessions, X. xliii. 69. The same thought is 
expressed in a very dense and comprehensive form by John Wessel, one of 
the forerunners of the Reformation : " Ipse deus, ipse sacerdos, ipse hostia, 
pro se, de se, sibi satisfecit." — De causis incarnationis, c. 17. And Pascal 
makes a similar remark in his fragmentary reflections : " Agnus occisus 
est ab origine mundi. The judge himself is the sacrifice." — Thoughts, 
London Ed. byPearce, p. 255. 

t 1 John ii. 2. 



THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 267 

offended one. "A mediator," argues Paul, in his Epistle 
to the Galatians, " is not a mediator of one ;" that is, in 
order to mediation, there must be two persons between 
whom to mediate. In like manner, propitiation implies 
that one being has wakened the just displeasure of 
another being, and that the latter needs to be placated 
by some valid and satisfactory method. Propitiation, 
therefore, — an idea that weaves the warp and weaves 
the woof of the entire scriptures, — if it has any solid 
signification, looks Godward.* God, and not man, is 
the party primarily offended by sin. It is his nature 
which requires the propitiatory sacrifice, and he him- 
self provides it. " Since, in his crucifixion," says John 
Howe, " Christ was a sacrifice, that is, was placatory and 
reconciling, and since reconciliations are always mutual, 
of both the contending parties to one another, it must 
have the proper influence of a sacrifice immediately upon 
both, and as well mollify men's hearts towards God, as 
procure that he should express favorable inclinations 
towards them. r ' ' f 

Another very pointed scripture text, from which we 

* This is very apparent when we analyze those words in different lan- 
guages which bring to view the relation of sinful man to the Supreme Being. 
The primary meaning always implies that the Deity is displacent, and it is 
only the seeondaiy signification that refers to the creature. The word i\d(r- 
koijlcu, for example, in Homer, is always objective in its signification when 
applied to the gods. 'lAdcweo&ai &eoV primarily means to appease God, to 
produce a favorable feeling or affection in God, and then in a secondary 
sense to reconcile oneself to him, to attain a peaceful feeling subjectively. 
The Saxon bot (whence the modern boot) signifies a compensation paid to 
an injured party, a redressing, recompense, amends, satisfaction, offering ; 
then a remedy or cure, effected by such compensation ; and lastly, a repent- 
ance, renewing, restoring, wrought out by means of boot or satisfaction given. 
In this way repentance is inseparable from atonement; and its genuineness 
is evinced by the cordiality with which judicial satisfaction is rendered, if it 
can be, or appropriated as rendered by a substitute, in case it cannot be. 

t Living Temple, Pt. II. c. 5. (Vol. I. p. 81. New York Ed.). 



268 THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 

cannot deduce anything but the doctrine of a real satis- 
faction of the Divine Nature by the work of Christ, is 
the declaration of Paul, that " if while we were yet [im- 
penitent] sinners Christ died for us, much more, then, 
being now justified by his blood we shall be saved from 
ivrath through him."* Whose wrath is this, from which, 
the apostle teaches, we are saved by the propitiatory 
death of Christ ? Is it the wrath of man, and not the 
wrath of God ? Most certainly it is not from that selfish 
and wicked passion in the human heart, which we most 
commonly associate with the term anger, that we are 
delivered by the blood of redemption. But may it not 
be our own moral indignation merely, and not that of 
our Creator and Judge, to which the apostle refers ? 
May not the appeasing effect of Christ's blood of expia- 
tion be confined to the human conscience solely, and 
there be no actual pacification of any attribute or feeling 
in the Deity ? But this is only a part of the truth. We 
do, indeed, need to be saved from the terrible wrath and 
remorse of our own consciences, as they bite back 
(remordere) upon us after the commission of sin, — and 
of this we shall speak in its place, — but we need pri- 
marily to be saved from the judicial displeasure of that 
immaculate Spirit, in whose character and ethical 
feeling towards sin the human conscience itself has its 
eternal ground and authority, and of which it is the 
most sensitive index and measure. 

The natural teaching, then, of these and similar pas- 
sages of scripture is, that the atoning sacrifice of the 
God-man renders, " propitious '" towards the trans- 
gressor, that particular side of the Divine Nature, and 
that one specific emotion of the living God, which other- 

* Bomans, v. 8, 9. 



THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 269 

wise and without it is displacent and unappeased. 
This atonement is a satisfaction for the ethical nature 
of God as well as man. This propitiation sustains an 
immediate relation to an attribute and quality in the 
Divine Essence, and exerts a specific influence upon it. 
By it God's holy justice and moral anger against sin 
are conciliated to guilty man, that man's remorseful 
conscience may, as a consequence of this pacification 
in the Divine Essence, experience the peace that passeth 
all understanding. It will therefore be the purpose of 
this Essay to evince that the piacular work of the in- 
carnate Deity sustains relations to both the nature of 
God and the nature of man ; and more particularly to 
show that the pacification of the human conscience 
itself is possible only in case there has been an antece- 
dent propitiation and satisfaction of that side of the 
Divine Nature which is the deep and eternal ground of 
conscience. 

Before commencing the discussion, we would in the 
very outset guard against a misconception, which 
almost uniformly arises in a certain class of minds, and 
which is not only incompatible with any just under- 
standing of the doctrine of atonement, but prevents 
even a dispassionate and candid attention to it. When 
it is asserted that "God requires to be propitiated," and 
that " his wrath needs to be averted by a judicial inflic- 
tion upon the sinner's substitute," the image imme- 
diately arises before such minds of an enraged and 
ugly demon, whose wrath is wrong, and who must be 
pacified by some other being than himself. Such minds 
labor under a twofold error, of which they ought to be 
disabused. Their first fatal misconception is, that the 
Divine anger is selfish and vindictive, instead of just 
and vindicative of law. And their second consists in 



270 THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 

their assumption that the placation issues from some 
other source than the offended One himself. Assuming, 
as they do, that anger in God is illegitimate, the attribu- 
tion of this emotion to him, of course undeifies him. 
And assuming, still further, that wrath against the sin- 
ner's sin cannot exist at the same instant with com- 
passion towards the sinner's soul, they find no pity in 
the Deity as thus defined. His sole emotion must be 
that of wrath, because, as they imagine, He can have 
but one feeling at a time, and therefore the creature who 
has incurred God's displeasure must look elsewhere 
than to God for the source of hope and peace. 

Now this w T hole view overlooks the complex nature, 
the infinite plenitude, of the Godhead. For at the very 
instant when the immaculate holiness of God is burn- 
ing with intensity, and reacting by an organic recoil 
against sin,* the infinite pity of God is yearning with a 
fathomless desire to save the transgressor from the effects 
of this very displeasure. The emotion of anger against 
sin is constitutional to the Deity, and is irrepressible at 
the sight of sin. But this is entirely compatible with 
the existence and exercise of another and opposite feel- 
ing, at the very same moment, in reference, not indeed 
to the sin, but to the soul of the sinner.f Mercy and 



* The inspired words that express the emotion of displacency in the 
Divine Being are startling from their energy and vividness. The primary 
sensuous meaning, or the visual image called up by them, illustrates this. 
The verb OST, employed in Ps. vii. 11, signifies to foam at the mouth; the 
verb Cji^j; means to cut up, or break up, into pieces ; the verb ~3S signifies to 
breathe hard through the distended nostrils ; etc. Does not the application of 
such words as these to the emotions of the Deity imply an inspiration that 
includes phraseology as well as ideas ? Would an uninspired writer ven- 
ture upon such diction in such a connection ? 

t The two emotions of which we are speaking, are clearly discriminated 
from each other bv the fact that one of them is constitutional, and the other 



THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 271 

truth meet together, righteousness and peace kiss each 
other, in the Divine Essence ; and it is a mutilated and 
meagre conception of the Godhead that can grasp but 
one of these opposites at once. Even within the nar- 
row and imperfect sphere of human life there may be, 
and were man holier, there often would be, the most 
holy and unselfish indignation at wrong doing, united 
with the utmost readiness to suffer and die if need be 
for the eternal welfare of the wrong doer. 

Such being the actual relation of indignation to corn- 
voluntary. The Divine wrath (0/5777 ®eov, Rom. i. 18), issues from the 
necessary antagonism between the pure essence of the Godhead, and moral 
evil. It is, therefore, natural, organic, necessary, and eternal. The logical 
idea of the Holy implies it. But the love of benevolence, or the Divine 
compassion, issues from the voluntary disposition of God, — from his heart 
and affections. It is goo&-ioill. It is, consequently, easy to see that the 
existence of the constitutional emotion is perfectly compatible with that of 
the voluntary, in one and the same being, and at one and the same moment ; 
and, in God, from all eternity, since he is unchangeable. Says Augustine 
(Traetatus in Joannem, 110) : "It is written, ' God commendeth his love 
towards us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us ' (Rom. v. 
8). He loved us, therefore, even when, in the exercise of enmity against 
him, we were working iniquity. And yet it is said with perfect truth : ' Thou 
hatest, Lord, all workers of iniquity' (Ps. v. 5). Wherefore, in a won- 
derful and divine manner, he both hated and loved us at the same time. He 
hated us, as being different from what he had made us ; but as our iniquity 
had not entirely destroyed his work in us, he could at the same time, in 
every one of us, hate what we had done and love what he had created. In 
every instance it is truly said of God : ' Thou hatest nothing which thou 
hast made ; for never wouldest thou have made anything, if thou hadst 
hated it ' (Wisdom xi. 24)." Calvin, after quoting the above from Augus- 
tine, remarks (Institutes II. xvi. 3) : " God, who is the perfection of right- 
eousness, cannot love iniquity, which he beholds in us all. We all, there- 
fore, have in us that which deserves God's hatred. Wherefore, in respect 
to our corrupt nature, and the succeeding depravity of our lives, we are all 
really offensive to God, guilty in his sight, and born to the damnation of hell. 
But because the Lord will not lose in us that which is his own, he yet dis- 
covers something that his goodness may love. For notwithstanding we are 
sinners through our own fault, yet we are still his creatures ; notwithstand- 
ing we have brought death upon ourselves, yet he had created us for life." 



272 THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 

passion in the Divine Essence, it is plain that it is God 
himself that propitiates himself to the transgressor. In 
the incarnate person of the Son, God voluntarily en- 
dures the weight of his own judicial displeasure, in 
order that the real criminal may be spared. The Divine 
compassion itself bears the inflictions of the Divine in- 
dignation, in the place of the transgressor.* That ethi- 
cal emotion in the being of God, which from the nature 
and necessity of the case is incensed against sin, God 
himself placates by a personal self-sacrifice that inures 
to the benefit of the creature, The " propitiation " 
spoken of by the apostle John is, therefore, no oblation 
ab extra, no device of a third party, or even of man 
himself, to render God placable towards man. It is 
wholly ab intra, a seZf-oblation upon the part of Deity 
itself, by which to satisfy those immanent and eternal 
imperatives of the Divine Nature which without it must 
find their satisfaction in the punishment of the trans- 
gressor, or else be outraged. Neither does the purpose 
to employ this method of salvation, to provide this sat- 
isfaction of ethical and judicial claims, originate outside 
of the Divine Nature. God is inherently inclined to 
forgive; and there is no proof of this so strong as the 
fact, that he does not shrink from this amazing self- 
sacrifice which forgiveness necessitates. The desire to 
save his transgressing and guilty creature wells up and 
overflows from the depths of his own compassionate 

* In all these statements we would be understood as making them in 
harmony with, and subject to, all the limitations of the catholic doctrine 
of the two natures in the one Person of Christ. The Divine Nature, in 
itself, is impassible ; but we have scriptural warrant in Acts xx. 28, for say- 
ing that God incarnate, or the God-Man, is passible, and suffers and dies. 
Hence, while there can be no transfer of predicates from one nature to the 
other, the predicates of both natures alike belong to the Person, and that 
Person is God as well as man. 



THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 273 

heart, and needs no soliciting or prompting from with- 
out. Side by side in the Godhead, then, there dwell 
the impulse to punish and the desire to pardon ; but the 
desire to pardon is realized in act, by carrying out the 
impulse to punish, not indeed upon the person of the 
criminal, but upon that of his substitute. And the sub- 
stitute is the Punisher Himself! Side by side in the 
Godhead there reside the emotion of moral wrath and 
the feeling of pity ; but the feeling of pity is manifested, 
not by denying, but by asserting, the entire legitimacy 
of the emotion of moral wrath, and "propitiating" its 
holy intensity by a sufficient oblation. And that obla- 
tion is incarnate Deity Itself! 

Viewed from this central point, and under this focal 
light, how impossible it is not to recognize both love and 
wrath in the Godhead,* and how impossible it is to 
conceive of a schism in the Divine Being, and separate 
his justice from his mercy. It is a real "propitiation" 
of the Divine anger against sin that is effected, but it 
is a propitiation that is effected by the Deity himself, 
out of his own self-sacrificing and principled com- 
passion. 

Turning now to the discussion of the theme pro- 
posed, the first step requires us to consider the relation 
which the ethical nature of man sustains to the ethical 
nature of God. For if both alike are to be satisfied by 
one and the same atoning work of one and the same 

* The inspired assertion that " God is a consuming fire" (Heb. xi. 29), 
is just as categorical and unqualified as the inspired assertion that " God is 
love " (1 John iv. 8), or the inspired assertion that " God is light" (1 John 
i. 5). Hence it is as inaccurate to resolve all the Divine emotions into 
love, as it would be to resolve them all into wrath. The truth is, that it is 
the Divine Essence alone, and not any one particular attribute, that can be 
logically regarded as the unity in which all the characteristic qualities of 
the Deity centre and inhere. 



274 THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 

Person, the Lord Jesus Christ, it is plain that there 
must be some common kindredness and sympathy 
between them. What then is the actual relation that 
exists between conscience in man and the attribute of 
justice in God? Do they give differing judgments with 
respect to the demerit of sin, and do they require differ- 
ent methods of satisfaction for it ? Is the human con- 
science clamorous for an atonement, while the Divine 
Nature is wholly indifferent ? Or, does the judicial sen- 
timent in the Deity demand the infliction of penalty 
upon crime, while that of man is opposed to such an 
infliction ? Is there, or is there not, an entire and per- 
fect agreement bet/ween the finite faculty and the infi- 
nite attribute, upon these points, so that in reference to 
sin and guilt, what God requires, man's moral nature 
also insists upon, and what an awakened conscience 
craves, eternal Justice also demands ? 

The moral reason, as containing for its substance and 
inlay the moral law of God, and the conscience as the 
faculty that testifies with respect to the harmony or the 
hostility of the will with this law, — this side of human 
nature is a part of that " image and likeness of God," 
after which man was originally created. These faculties 
have to do with what is religious, ethical, eternal; and, 
notwithstanding the apostasy and corruption of man's 
heart and will, they still constitute a point of connection 
and communication between the being of man and the 
being of God. The moral reason and conscience are 
the intellectual media whereby, if we may so speak, 
man and his Maker are put en rapport. When the 
Eternal Judge addresses the creature upon the subject 
of religion, upon the duties which he owes, and the 
liabilities under which he stands, he speaks first of all, 
not to his imagination, or his taste, or his hostile heart, 



THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 275 

or his perverse will, but to his moral sense and senti- 
ment. When God begins the work of conviction, and 
in order to this throws in an influence from his own 
holy and immaculate Essence, He first shoots a pang 
through this part of man's complex being. This, like 
Darien, is the isthmus of volcanic fire that both divides 
and joins the oceans. 

Here, then, if anywhere in the being of man, we are 
to look for views of the Deity that correspond to his 
real nature and character. And here, in particular, we 
are to find the true index of his judicial emotions to- 
wards sin, and the clue to what his ethical nature and 
feeling demands in order to its remission. We must 
not ask the sinful heart, or the taste, or the mere under- 
standing, what God thinks of sin, and what is his feel- 
ing respecting it. Upon these points we must take 
counsel of the conscience. For the God of the selfish 
heart is the deity of sentimentalism ; the God of the 
imagination and the taste is the beautiful Grecian 
Apollo ; the God of the understanding merely is the 
cold and unemotional abstraction of the deist and the 
pantheist ; but the God of the conscience is the living 
and holy God of Israel, — the God of punishments and 
atonements. This ethical part of man's being, then, 
has a closer affinity than any other part with the Divine 
Essence, and consequently its phenomena, its pangs 
(and its pacification, have a more intimate connection 
than those of any other of his powers, with the pro- 
cesses of the Eternal Mind. This is the finite contact- 
ing point in man that corresponds with the infinite sur- 
face in God. The moral reason and conscience, thus 
having their counterpart and antithesis in the Deity, 
must, therefore, be regarded as indexes of him, and partic- 
ularly of what goes on in his being in relation to human 



276 



THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 



sin and guilt. The calm condemnation of man's ethi- 
cal nature, and the unselfish organic remorse of his con- 
science, which are consequent upon his transgression 
of law, are effluences from that Being whose eyes " de- 
vour all iniquity." The righteous indignation into 
which the judicial part of the human soul is stirred by 
sin, is the finite but homogeneous expression of that anger 
against moral evil which burns with an eternal intensity 
in the purity of the Divine Essence. 

Hence it follows that a careful examination of what 
we find in the workings of this part of the human con- 
stitution, instead of deterring, will compel us to trans- 
fer in the same species to God, what exists in man in 
only a finite degree. In other words, the emotion of the 
human conscience towards sin will be found to be the 
same in kind with the emotion of God towards sin. 
The analysis must, indeed, be very careful. We must 
eliminate from the indignation of the moral sense all 
elements of selfish passion that have become mixed 
with it, owing to that corruption of human nature which 
prevents even as serious a power as conscience from 
working with a perfectly normal action.* We must 
clarify remorse until the residuum left is pure spiritual 
wrath against pure wickedness. We must do our 
utmost, under the illumination of divine truth and the 
actuation of the Holy Spirit, to have conscience do its 

* Trench remarks upon Eph. iv. 26, that " St. Paul is not, as so many- 
understand him, condescending to human infirmity, and saying: 'Your 
anger shall not be imputed to you as a sin, if you put it away before night- 
fall ; ' but rather, ' Be ye angry, yet in this anger of yours suffer no sinful 
element to mingle ; ' there is that which may cleave even to a righteous 
anger, the irapopyuruSs, the irritation, the exasperation, which must be dis- 
missed at once ; that so, being defecated of this impurer element which 
mingled with it, that only which ought to remain, may remain." — Syria- 
nymesofN. T , §37. 



THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 



277 



perfect, unmixed work ; and then we need not shrink 
from asserting, that this righteous displacency of the 
moral sense, against the voluntary wickedness, is pre- 
cisely the same emotion in specie with the wrath of God.* 
It will aid us if at this point we direct attention to 
the distinction between the human conscience and the 
human heart; and particularly to the difference between 
emotion in conscience and emotion in the hearty The 
feelings and passions of the corrupt human heart we 
cannot, in any form, attribute to God. Envy, pride, 
malice, shame, selfish love, and selfish hatred, cannot 
possibly exist in that pure and blessed Nature. Hence 
it is that we are so apt to shrink from those portions 
of scripture which clothe the Deity with indignant and 

* Hence the Divine injunction in Ps. xCvii. 18 : "Ye that love the Lord, 
hate evil;" and in Rom. xii. 9: "Abhor that which is evil." This pure 
and spiritual displacency towards moral evil, unmixed with any elements 
of sinful and human passion, is one of the last accomplishments of the 
Christian life. Hear the following low and sad refrain from the spirit of 
the intensely earnest and ethical Master of Rugby, as he muses under the 
dark chestnut-trees, and beside the limpid waters, and beneath the cerulean 
sky of Lake Como : "It is almost awful to look at the overwhelming 
beauty around me, and then think of moral evil ; it seems as if heaven and 
hell, instead of being separated by a great gulf from one another, were 
absolutely on each other's confines, and indeed not far from every one of 
us. Might the sense of moral evil be as strong in me as my delight in ex- 
ternal beauty ; for in a deep sense of moral evil, more perhaps than in am/thing 
else, abides a saving knowledge of God. ! It is not so much to admire moral 
good ; that we may do, and yet not be ourselves conformed to it ; but if we 
really do abhor that which is evil, not the persons in whom evil resides, but 
the evil that dwelleth in them, and much more manifestly and certainly to 
our own knowledge, in our own hearts, — this is to have the feeling of God 
and of Christ, and to have our spirit in sympathy with the spirit of God. 
Alas ! how easy to see this and say it, — how hard to do it and to feel it ! " 
— Arnold's Life and Correspondence. Appendix D. 

t For some further explanation, and illustration, of the important dis- 
tinction between the mental and the moral, the constitutional and the volun- 
tary, see pp. 164 — 167. 



278 



THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 



condemnatory feelings, because this class of emotions 
are those in and by which the depravity of the human 
heart is most wont to display itself. But the emotion 
of which we are speaking is not a passion of the human 
heart. The heart of man loves sin ; but we are describ- 
ing remorse, which is the wrath of the conscience 
against sin. We are delineating the operations and 
processes of a very different part of the human consti- 
tution from that which is the source and seat of earthly 
passions and sinful emotions. We have passed beyond 
the hot and passionate heart of man to the cool and 
silent judicial centre of his being ; and here we find 
feelings and processes of an altogether different and 
higher order. Indignation in conscience is a totally dif- 
ferent emotion from indignation in the heart. A man's 
moral displeasure at his own sin is an entirely different 
mental exercise from his selfish displeasure towards his 
neighbor. The former is an ethical and impartial emo- 
tion, totally independent of the will and affections, and 
called out involuntarily from the conscience by the mere 
sheer contact between it and the heart's iniquity. Hence 
a man never condemns himself for the existence of such 
a species of displeasure within his breast. He may be 
angry in this style and sin not.* The sun may go down 
upon this kind of wrath. And yet it is not a virtue for 
which he can take credit to himself; for it is no product 
of his. It is not an emotion of his heart or his will, 
but is simply an involuntary and irrepressible efflux 
from his rational nature. He may only give glory to 
his Creator for it, as the only relic left him, in his total 

* "I further read : ' Be angry and sin not.' And how was I moved, 
my God, who had now learned to be angry at myself, for things past, that 
I might not sin in time to come ! Yea to be justly angry." — Augustine's 
Confessions, IX. iv. 10. 



THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 279 

alienation of heart and will from God, of his primitive 
and constitutional kindredness with the First Perfect 
and the First Fair. 

Again, this judicial emotion, this conscientious wrath 
of which we are speaking, differs from the selfish and 
partial emotions of the human heart, in that it is not 
intrinsically an unhappy feeling. It does not, like the 
latter, of necessity render the being in whom it exists 
miserable. Envy, hatred, malice, shame, pride, are each 
and all of them, unhappy exercises in themselves, as 
well as in their consequences. They cannot exist in 
any being without mental suffering. But it is not 
so with the moral displeasure of the moral sense. 
"Whether this just and legitimate emotion be a tor- 
ment or not, depends altogether upon the state of 
the heart and will, upon the moral character. It is 
indeed true that it causes unhappiness in a sinful being, 
because in this instance the emotions of the heart 
are in antagonism with the emotion of conscience ; 
because the executive faculty is not in harmony 
with the judicial faculty. But where there is no per- 
sonal sin, both the wrath of conscience and the wrath 
of God are as innocuous as fire upon asbestos. Hence 
this very same emotion of moral indignation and abhor- 
rence exists in an intense degree in the angels and the 
seraphim, but is productive of no disquietude in them, 
because there is nothing evil in their oivn character 
upon which it can wreak its force. There is a perfect 
harmony within them, between the emotions of the 
heart and the judicial emotion, between the character 
and the conscience. And, in like manner, this same 
feeling of ethical displeasure exists in an infinite degree 
in the being of God, without disturbing, in the least, 
the ineffable peace and blessedness of that pure nature 



280 THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 

which is the paradise and elysium of all who are con- 
formed to it. For this judicial sentiment is a legitimate 
one, and nothing that is legitimate can be intrinsically 
miserable. And therefore it is that the saints and the 
seraphim, as they look down from the crystal battle- 
ments with holy abhorrence and indignation upon the 
sorceries and murders and uncleanness of the fallen 
Babylon, are not distressed by their emotion, but, on the 
contrary, rejoice with a holy joy at the final triumph of 
justice in the universe of God, and say, Alleluia, as the 
smoke of that just torment rises up for ever and ever.* 
And therefore it is that God himself carries eternally, in 
his own blessed nature, a righteous indignation against 
moral evil, that is no source of disquietude to him, 
because there is no mora] evil in him, nor to the angels 
and saints and seraphim, because there is none in them ; 
but only to those rebellious and wicked spirits into 
whom it does fall like lightning from the sky. 

For if the emotion of moral indignation were intrin- 
sically one of unhappiness, then the existence of evil 
would be the destruction of the Divine blessedness ; 
because God " cannot look upon evil with allowance,"! 



* " And after these things, I heard a great voice of much people in 
heaven, saying, Alleluia : Salvation, and glory, and honor, and power unto 
the Lord our God : for true and righteous are his judgments, for he hath 
judged the great whore which did corrupt the earth with her fornication, 
and hath avenged the blood of his servants at her hand. And again they 
said, Alleluia : and her smoke rose up forever and ever. And the four and 
twenty elders, and the four beasts fell down, and worshipped God that sat 
on the throne, saying, Amen, Al/eluia." — Rev. xix. 1 — 4. 

t " Tbou art not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness. Thou hatest 
all workers of iniquity" (Ps. v. 5, 6). " God is angry with the Avicked 
every day" (Ps. vii. 11). " Who may stand in thy sight when once thou 
art angry" (Ps. lxxvi. 7). "Who knoweth the power of thine anger? 
Even according to thy fear so is thy wrath" (Ps. xc. 11). "He that 
believeth not the Son, shall not see life ; but the wrath of God abideth on 
him" (John iii. 36). 






THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 281 

and yet he is constantly looking upon it. But it is not 
so. On the contrary, the Deity is blessed in his dis- 
placency at that which is vile and hateful. For pleasure 
is the coincidence between a feeling and its correlated 
object. It implies intrinsic congruity and fitness. It 
would therefore be unhappiness in any being to hate 
what is lovely, or to love what is hateful ; to be pleased 
with what is wrong, and displeased with what is right ; 
because the proper coincidence between the emotion 
and the object would not obtain. But when God, or 
any being, hates what is hateful, and is angry at that 
which merits wrath, the true nature and fitness of things 
is observed, and that inward harmony which is the sub- 
stance of mental happiness is maintained. Anger and 
hatred are almost indissolubly connected in our minds 
with mental wretchedness, because we behold their ex- 
ercise only in an abnormal and sinful sphere. In an 
apostate world, as such, there is no proper and fitting 
coincidence between emotions and their objects. A 
sinner hates holiness, which he ought to love ; and loves 
sin, which he ought to hate. The anger of his heart is 
not legitimate, but passionate and selfish. The love of 
his heart is illicit ; and therefore, as it is styled in the 
scripture, is mere lust or evil concupiscence (eTriSrvfjuia). 
In a sinful world, as such, all the true relations and cor- 
relations are reversed. Love and hatred are expended 
upon exactly the wrong objects. But when these emo- 
tions are contemplated within the sphere of the Holy 
and the Eternal ; when they are beheld in God, exer- 
cised only upon their appropriate and deserving objects ; 
when the wrath falls only upon the sin and uncleanness 
of hell, and burns up nothing but filth in its pure celestial 
flame; the emotion is not merely legitimate, but beau- 
tiful with an august beauty, and is no source of pain 



282 THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 

either to the Divine Mind or to any minds in sympathy 
with it. It is only upon this principle that we can 
explain the blessedness of the Deity, in connection with 
his omniscience and omnipresence. We know that sin 
and the punishment of sin are ever before him. The 
smoke of torment is perpetually rolling up in the pres- 
ence of the Omnipresent. And yet he is supremely 
blessed. But he can be so only because there is a just 
and proper correlationship between his wrath and the 
object upon which it falls ; only because he condemns 
that which is intrinsically damnable.* The least dis- 
turbance of this coincidence, the slightest love for the 
hateful, or hatred for the lovely, would indeed render 
God a wretched being. Bat the perfect harmony of it 
makes him " God over all" hell as well as heaven, 
" blessed forever." f Were this ethical feeling once to 
be outraged by the final triumph of iniquity over right- 
eousness ; were the smoke of torment to ascend eter- 



* It is at this point that the metaphysical necessity of endless punish- 
ment appears. For if sin be intrinsically damnable, it is intrinsically pun- 
ishable. If then the question be asked : How long is it intrinsically dam- 
nable and punishable ? there is but one answer. There is, in fact, no 
logical mean between no punishment at all of sin as an intrinsic evil, and 
an absolute, that is, an endless punishment of it. 

t It is a standing objection of infidelity to the Biblical idea and repre- 
sentation of the Deity, that it conflicts with the natural intuitions of the 
human mind. It is asserted that the instinctive sentiments of the soul 
repel the doctrine of anger against sin. The ethics of nature, say these 
thcorizers, are contrary to the ethics of scripture upon this point, and hence 
mankind must make a choice between the two. But a careful study of the 
most profound systems of natural religion does not corroborate this asser- 
tion. Probably no mind, outside of the pale of Christianity, has made a 
more discriminating and truthful representation of the natural sentiments 
of the human mind, than Aristotle. But this dispassionate thinker asserts 
that " He who feels anger on proper occasions, at proper persons, and in a 
proper manner, and for a proper length of time, is an object of praise." — • 
Nicomuchean Ethics, Book IV. c. 5. 






THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 



283 



nally from pure and innocent spirits, and were the 
revelry of joy to steam up everlastingly from the souls 
of the vile and the worthless ; were the great relations 
of right and wrong, sin and penalty, happiness and 
misery, once to be reversed in the universe, and under the 
government of God, then indeed this quick sense of 
justice, and this holy indignation at sin, would be a grief 
and a sorrow to its possessor. And therefore it is, that, 
in all the Divine administration, and in the entire plan 
of redemption, the utmost possible pains is taken to 
justify, and legitimate, and satisfy this judicial senti- 
ment, and to see that its demands are fully met. 

There must be this correspondence between the judi- 
cial nature of man and the judicial nature of God, or 
religion is impossible. How can man even know what 
is meant by justice in the Deity, if there is absolutely 
nothing of the same species in his own rational consti- 
tution, which if realized in his own character as it is in 
that of God, would make him just as God is just ? How 
can he know what is meant by moral perfection in God, 
if in his own rational spirit there is absolutely no ideal 
of moral excellence, which if realized in himself as it is 
in the Creator, would make him excellent as he is excel- 
lent ? Without some mental correspondent, to which 
to appeal and commend themselves, the teachings of 
revelation could not be apprehended. A body of knowl. 
edge alone is not the whole ; there must be an inlet foi 
it, an organ of apprehension. But if there is no such 
particular part of the human constitution as has been 
described, and these calm judgments of the moral sense, 
and this righteous displeasure of the conscience, are to 
be put upon a level with the workings of the fancy and 
imagination, or the selfish passions of the human heart, 
then there is no point of contact and communication 



284 THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 

between the nature of man and the being of God. 
There is no part of his own complex being upon which 
man may fall back, with the certainty of not being mis- 
taken in judgments of ethics and religion. Both anchor 
and anchoring-ground are gone, and he is afloat upon 
the boundless, starless ocean of ignorance and scepti- 
cism. Even if revelations are made, they cannot enter 
his mind. There is no contacting surface through 
which they can approach and take hold of his being. 
They cannot be seen to be what they really are, the 
absolute truth of God, because there is no eye with 
which to see them. 

Assuming, then, that there is this correspondence and 
correlationship between the moral constitution of man 
and the Divine Nature, we proceed, in the light of the 
fact, to evince the doctrine, taught in the scripture texts 
which we have cited, that the atonement of Christ is a 
real satisfaction both on the part of God and man. The 
death of incarnate Deity has always been regarded, by 
those who have believed that the Deity became incar- 
nate in Jesus Christ, as expiatory. As such, it relates 
immediately to the attribute of justice in the Creator, 
and to the faculty of conscience in the creature. And 
the position taken here, is that it sustains the same rela- 
tion to both. It satisfies that which would be dissatis- 
fied both in God and man if the penalty of sin were 
merely set aside and abolished by an act of will. It 
placates an ethical feeling which is manifesting itself in 
the form of remorse in the conscience of the trans- 
gressor, only because it has first existed in the nature 
of God in the form of a judicial displeasure towards 
moral evil. 

A fundamental attribute of Deity is justice. This 
comes first into view, and continues in sight to the very 



THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 2S5 

last, in all inquiries into the Divine Nature. No attri- 
bute can be conceived of that is more ultimate and 
central than this one. This is proved by the fact that 
the operation of all the other Divine attributes, love 
itself not excepted, is conditioned and limited by justice. 
For whatever else God may be, or may not be, he must 
be just. It is not optional with him to exercise this 
attribute, or not to exercise it, as it is in the instance 
of that class of attributes which are antithetic to it. 
We can say : " God may be merciful or not, as he 
pleases ; " but we cannot say : " God may be just or not, 
as he pleases." It cannot be asserted that God is inex- 
orably obligated to show pity ; but it can be categori- 
cally affirmed that God is inexorably obligated to do 
justly.* For the characteristic of justice is necessary 
exaction ; while, if we may accommodate a Shaksperean 
phrase, " the quality of mercy is not strained." Hence 
the exercise of justice can be demonstrated upon 
a priori grounds, while that of mercy is known only by 
a declaration or promise upon the part of God. It is 
for this reason that man can have no certainty that the 

* Owen (Dissertation on Divine Justice, Chap. II.), notices the self-con- 
tradiction there is, in conceding that justice is an essential attribute in God, 
and yet that it can be set aside by an act of arbitrary omnipotence, in the 
following terms : " To me, these arguments are altogether astonishing, 
viz. : ' That sin-punishing justice should be natural to God, and yet that 
God, sin being supposed to exist, may either exercise it, or not exercise it.' 
They may also say, and with as much propriety, that truth is natural to 
God, but upon a supposition that he were to converse with man, he might 
either use it, or not ; or, that omnipotence is natural to God, but upon a 
supposition that he were inclined to do any work without (extra) himself, 
that it were free to him to act omnipotently or not ; or, finally, that sin-punishing 
justice is among the primary causes of the death of Christ, and that Christ 
was set forth as a propitiation, to declare his righteousness, and yet that 
that justice required not the punishment of sin. For if it should require it, 
how is it possible that it should not necessarily require it, since God would 
be unjust, if he should not inflict punishment." 



286 



THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 



Deity is a merciful being, except as he obtains it from a 
special revelation. When the thoughtful pagan looked 
up into the pure heavens above him, or into the deep 
recesses within him, he had no doubt that the Infinite 
One is just, and a punisher of evil doing, because he 
must be such. Hence he trembled ; and hence he 
offered a propitiatory sacrifice. But neither from the 
heavens, nor from anything in his own moral constitu- 
tion, could he obtain certainty in regard to the attribute 
of mercy ; because there is nothing of a necessary na- 
ture in the exercise of this' attribute. God might or 
might not be merciful to him. Man may dare to hope 
that there is pity in the Deity ; but whether there actu- 
ally is, he cannot know with certainty until the heavens 
are opened, and a voice issues from the lips of the 
Supreme himself, saying : " I will show mercy, and this 
is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased." The 
light of nature is sufficient for man's damnation ; but it 
casts not a ray in the direction of his salvation. There 
is ample evidence from natural religion that the Deity 
is holy and impartial ; but it is only from revealed re- 
ligion that the human mind obtains its warrant for 
believing in the Divine clemency. From the position 
of natural ethics alone, man is merely condemned to 
retribution ; and, as matter of fact, while standing only 
upon this position, his conscience accuses him, and fills 
him with fears and forebodings of judgment. Noth- 
ing but a promise of forgiveness, from the mouth of 
God, can remove these fears ; but a promise to pardon 
is not a priori, and necessary, like a threatening to 
punish. 

The absolute and indefeasible nature of justice is 
seen, again, by considering the nature of law. If we 
regard the moral law as the efflux of the Divine Nature, 



THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 287 

and not, as in the Grotian theory, a positive statute 
which may be relaxed in part, or wholly abrogated, by 
the law-making power,* we find this same stark neces- 
sity existing. The law is obligated to punish the trans- 
gressor, as much as the transgressor is obligated to obey 
the law. Human society, for instance, has claim upon 
law for penalty, as really as law has claim upon human 
society for obedience. Law has no option. Justice 
has but one function. The necessity of penalty is as 
great as the necessity of obligation. The law itself 
is under law ; that is, it is under the necessity of its 
own nature ; and therefore the only possible way 
whereby a transgressor can escape the penalty of law, 
is for a substitute to endure it for him. The language 
of Milton respecting the transgressor is metaphysically 
true : 



* "All positive laws/' says Grotius (Defensio Fidei, Caput. III. p. 310, 
Ed. Amstelaedemi, 1679), " are relaxable. Those who fear that if we con- 
cede this, we do an injury to God because we thereby represent him as mu- 
table, are much deceived. For law is not something internal in God, or in the 
will itself of God, but it is a particular effect or product of his will (voluntatis 
quidam efFectus). But that the effects, or products of the Divine will are 
mutable, is very certain. Moreover, in promulgating a positive law, which 
he might wish to relax at some future time, God does not exhibit any 
fickleness of will; For God seriously indicated that he desired that his law 
should be valid, and obligatory ; while yet he reserved the right of relaxing it, 
if he saw fit, because this right pertains to a positive law, from the very 
nature of the case, and cannot be abdicated by the Deity. Nay more, the 
Deity does not abdicate the right of even abrogating law altogether, as is 
apparent from the instance of the ceremonial law." Grotius then proceeds 
to apply this principle to the moral law, and the penalty accompanying 
it, and though intending to counteract the Socinian theory, lays down posi- 
tions which in the judgment of dogmatic historians logically lead to it — 
See Baumgarten — Crusius (Dogmengeschichte, II. 274) ; Miinscher — Von 
Colin — Neudeclcer (Dogmengeschichte, III. 508); Baur (Versohnungslehre, 
414 — 435, — translated in Bibliotheca Sacra, IX. 259 — 272); Hagenbach, 
(Dogmengeschichte, 3 Aufl. §268) ; ErSchund Gruber's Encyclopadie (Art 
Acceptilatio) ; Hengstoiberg's Kirchen-Zeitung for 1834. 



288 THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 

" He, with all his posterity, must die : 
Die he, or justice must ; unless for him 
Some other able, and as willing, pay 
The rigid satisfaction, death for death."* 

And the mercy of God consists in substituting Himself 
incarnate for his creature, for purposes of atonement. 
Analyzed to its ultimate elements, God's pity towards 
the soul of man is God's satisfying his own eternal 
attribute of justice for it. It does not consist in out- 
raging his own law, and the guilt-smitten conscience 
itself, by simply snatching the criminal away from their 
retributions, in the exercise of an unprincipled and an 
unbridled almightiness, or in substituting a partial for a 
complete atonement ; but in enduring the full and 
entire penal infliction by which both are satisfied.! 



* Paradise Lost, III. 209—212. 

t It was one of the objections of Socinus to the theory of plenary satis- 
faction, that if God has received a full equivalent for the punishment due 
to man, then he does not exercise any mercy in remitting his sin. But this 
objection overlooks the fact that the equivalent is not furnished by man, but 
by God. Were the atonement the creature's oblation to justice, Socinus's 
objection would have force. But it is God, and not man, who satisfies 
justice for the sinner. It is indeed a se// : satisfaction upon the part of God, 
vet none the less a self- sacrifice ; and self-sacrifice is confessedly the highest 
form of love. The truth is, that this objection of Socinus begs the ques- 
tion in dispute, by defining mercy in its own way. It assumes (as Socinus 
expressly argues, Bib. Frat. Pol. I. 566 sq.) that the ideas of satisfaction 
and mercy mutually exclude each other ; that mercy consists in relaxing 
and waiving justice, and not in vicariously satisfying it. From this premiss 
it follows, of course, that where there is any satisfaction of justice there is 
no mercy, and where there is any waiving of justice there is mercy. A 
complete atonement, consequently, would exclude mercy altogether ; a par- 
tial atonement would allow some room for mercy, in partially waiving legal 
claims ; and no atonement at all would afford full play for the attribute, 
by the entire nullification of all judicial demands. According to the catholic 
view, on the contrary, the ideas of satisfaction and mercy are combined 
and harmonized in a vicarious atonement, or the assumption of penalty by 
a competent person. If the sinner himself should suffer the penalty, there 



THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 289 

Still another proof of the primary nature of justice 
is found in the fact of human accountability. The 
most distinguishing characteristic of man is evidence of 
the most distinguishing characteristic of God ; and thus 
the correspondence between the Divine and the human 
meets us again. Man is not a link in the necessary chain 
of material nature. He is by creation a free creature ; 
capable of continuing holy as he was created, or of 
turning to sin. Now, over against this freedom and re- 
sponsibility on the part of man, there stands justice on 
the part of God. This great divine attribute presup- 
poses the hazardous human endowment of will, and 
holds the possessor of it accountable for its use or 
abuse. Without such a characteristic, man could not 
stand in any sort of relationship to such solemn realities 
as law and justice. There would be nothing in his con- 
stitution that could feel the tremendous swing and 
blow of penal infliction. For justice smites a trans- 
gressor as one who has illegitimately assumed a centre 
of his own, and who is wickedly standing upon that 
centre, in hostility to the being and government of God. 
In a certain sense, though not that which excludes the 
permissive decree and the preventive power of the Su- 
preme Being, justice supposes the sinner to be sustain- 
ing something of the isolated and self-asserting relation 
to God that the principle of evil in the system of dual- 
ism sustains to the principle of good ; and when the 
accountable self-will of a creature attempts to set itself 
up as an independent and hostile agent in the doing 



would be no vicariousness in the suffering, and there would be the execu- 
tion of justice merely, without any mercy. But when the incarnate Son 
of God, as the sinner's substitute, endm-es the penalty due to sin, justice is 
satisfied by the suffering which is undergone; and the Son of God, surely, 
shows the height of compassion in undergoing it. 



290 THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 

of evil, it then feels the full force of the avenging, 
vindicating stroke of law, as if it were a single dis- 
connected atom, all alone and by itself, in the middle 
of creation. 

Any just view of sin as guilt, as the product of will, 
is, consequently, corroborative of the position that the 
attribute of which we are speaking is an immanent and 
necessary one in the Divine Nature. We might con- 
ceive of the same amount of evil consequences as those 
which flow from human transgression ; but if this latter 
were not the real work and agency of a responsible 
creature, Eternal Justice could take no cognizance of it. 
Unless sin is crime, penalty has no more relation to it 
than it has to the disease and corruption in the material 
world about us ; and the fall of man could no more be 
visited by the infliction of judicial suffering, than could 
that process of decay which is continually going on in 
the forests, by means of which a more luxuriant vege- 
tation springs up, and a more glorious forest waves in 
the breeze. 

It has been a query among those who have spec- 
ulated upon the nature of the Deity : What is the base 
or substrate of His being ? The inquiry has too often 
been so answered as to bring in a subtle pantheism, 
because there was more reference to the natural than 
the ethical attributes of the Godhead. Whether the 
question in such a reference can be answered by the 
finite mind, we do not pretend to decide here ; but with 
reference to God's moral constitution, with reference to 
that congeries of ethical attributes which belongs to him 
as a personal being, it is as certain as anything can be, 
that the deep substrate and base of them all, is eternal 
law and impartial justice. This pervades all the rest, 
keeps them in equilibrium, and constitutes, as it were, 



THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 291 

the very divinity of the Deity. And this view of the 
primary nature of justice coincides with the convictions 
of men in all ages. In all time, justice has been the 
one particular divine attribute that has pressed most 
heavily upon the human race. This always comes first 
into man's mind, when the idea of the Deity over- 
shadows him. He trembles when he remembers that 
God is just ; and he remembers this when he remem- 
bers nothing else. Nor let it be objected that this is 
owing to the fact that man is sinful, and that this qual- 
ity in the Supreme Being would not be so prominent in 
the mind of an unfalien creature who has nothing to 
fear from it. The utterance of the pure burning sera- 
phim is : Holy, Holy, Holy. That which comes first 
into the minds of the spotless and unfearing worship- 
pers in God's immediate presence, — they whose spirits, 
in the phrase of Jeremy Taylor, "are becalmed, and 
made even as the brow of Jesus, and smooth like the 
heart of God," — is that particular characteristic in the 
Divine Being, by virtue of which he has a right to sit 
on the eternal throne ; that specific attribute upon which 
the moral administration of the universe must be estab- 
lished. 

Now, if this be a correct statement of the necessary 
nature and the capital position of Divine Justice, it is 
plain that any plan or method that has to do with sin 
and guilt, must have primary reference to it, and must 
give plenary satisfaction to it as it exists in God himself. 
Inasmuch as justice, and not mercy, is the limiting and 
conditioning attribute, its demands must be acknowl- 
edged and met in order that mercy may make even the 
first advances towards the transgressor. Compassion 
cannot, by mere arbitrary will and might, stride forward 
to reach its own private ends, and trample down justice 



292 THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 

by sheer force ; but must come forth, as she does in the 
bleeding Lamb of God, as the voluntary servant and 
victim of Law, doing all its behests, and bearing all its 
burdens, and enduring its sharp, inexorable pains, in the 
place of (vice, vicarie) the helpless object whom ven- 
geance suffereth not to live. The cup must be put to 
the lips of him who has volunteered to be the Atoner, 
and he must drink it to the bottom, for the guilty trans- 
gressor whose law-place he has taken. The God-man 
having, out of his own free will and affection, become 
the sinner's Substitute, must now receive a sinner's treat- 
ment, and be "numbered with the transgressors" (Isa. 
liii. 12). He cannot therefore escape the agony and 
passion, the hour and the power of darkness. He may 
give expression to his spontaneous shrinking from the 
awful self-oblation, as the hour darkens and draws on, 
in the utterance : " O my Father, if it be possible, let 
this cup pass from me ;" but having taken the place of 
the guilty, it is not possible, and he must sweat the 
bloody sweat, he must cry : " My God, my God, why 
hast thou forsaken me?" that his voice may then ring 
through the universe and down the ages : " It is finished, 
— the atonement is made."* 

For the Deity cannot, by an arbitrary and unprin- 
cipled procedure, release the transgressor's Substitute 
from the penal suffering, and inflict a wound upon that 
holy judicial nature, which is vital in every part with 

* "The justice of God is exceedingly glorified in this work. God is so 
strictly and immutably just, that he would not spare his beloved Son when 
he took upon him the guilt of men's sins, and was substituted in the room 
of sinners. He would not abate him the least mite of that debt which 
justice demanded. Justice should take place, though it cost his infinitely 
dear Son his precious blood ; and his enduring such extraordinary reproach, 
and pain, and death in its most dreadful form." — Edwards's Works, IV. 
140. 



THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 293 

the breath of law and the life of justice. By reason of 
an immanent necessity, he cannot disturb his own eter- 
nal sense of righteousness and ethical tranquillity, by 
doing damage to one whole side of his Godhead. 

He has not. In the voluntary, the cordially offered, 
sacrifice of the incarnate Son, the judicial nature of 
God, which by a constitutional necessity requires the 
punishment of sin, finds its righteous requirement fully 
met. Plenary punishment is inflicted upon One who is 
infinite, and therefore competent ; upon One who is 
finite, and therefore passible ; upon One who is inno- 
cent, and therefore can suffer for others ; upon One who 
is voluntary, and therefore uncompelled. By this the- 
anthropic oblation, the ethical feeling, the organic emo- 
tion of displeasure in the Deity is, in the scripture 
phrase, made "propitious" towards the guilty, because 
it has been placated by it. Thus God is immutably 
just while he justifies (Rom. iii. 26), and his mercy is, 
in the last analysis, one with his truth and his law. 

We turn, now, to the other half of the proposition 
derived from the scripture texts that have been cited, 
and proceed to show that the atonement of Christ 
effects a real satisfaction upon the part of man. We 
have seen that the propitiatory death of the God-man 
meets the immanent ethical necessities of the Divine 
Nature. We have now the easier task of evincing that 
it meets the moral wants of human nature. 

In discussing the fact of a divinely-established cor- 
respondence between the judicial nature of man and 
that of God, we have already observed that the attribute 
of justice naturally selects this judicial part of man as 
the inlet of approach to him. Eternal law has, in all 
ages, poured itself down through the human conscience, 
like a fountain through the channel it has worn for 



294 THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 

itself, and in this instance like hot lava down a moun- 
tain gorge. Hence by watching its workings within 
this particular faculty, we are enabled to determine 
what man's judicial nature requires, and also inciden- 
tally to throw back some more light upon the relations 
of the atonement to the Divine Nature. It is indeed 
true that Divine Justice manifests itself in other modes 
than this. There are revelations of it in the written 
word, and in the course of providence and human his- 
tory. But we are endeavoring to establish the position 
that the atonement has an internal necessity grounded 
in the very moral being of man. It is necessary, there- 
fore, to look at the principle of law in its vital and felt 
manifestation within the soul of the criminal himself. 
By the analysis of the contents of a remorseful con- 
science, especially if it has been made unusually living 
and poignant by the truth and Spirit of God, we may 
discover much of the real quality of Eternal Justice. 
A.s this august attribute acts and reacts within the 
breast of man upon his violation of law, we may obtain 
some clear and conscious knowledge of its nature and 
operations ; and also of what the human conscience 
itself demands, and with what it is satisfied. 

The commission of sin is either attended or suc- 
ceeded by the sensation of guilt, — one of the most dis- 
tinct and unique of all the sensations that emerge 
within the horizon of self-consciousness. Provided con- 
science does its unmixed work, the transgressor is con- 
scious, not merely of unhappiness, which is a very low 
form of feeling, but of criminality, which is a very high 
form. Nay, the more profound and thorough the ope- 
ration of the moral faculty becomes, the more does the 
sense of mere wretchedness retreat into the back- 
ground, and the sense of ill-desert come forth into the 



THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 295 

foreground of consciousness. It is possible for this 
latter element to drive out, for a time, the particular 
feeling of misery, and to absorb the mind in the sense 
of horror and amazement at the past transgression. 
The guilty, in the final day, are represented as calling 
upon the rocks and the mountains to fall upon them, 
as inviting new forms of suffering, in the vain hope 
that the awful consciousness of crime may be drowned 
thereby. 

Now, seizing and holding the experience of the trans- 
gressor at this point, let us examine it more closely. 
Notice that this consciousness of guilt, pure and simple, 
is wholly involuntary. It comes in upon the criminal, 
not only without his will, but in spite of it. He would 
keep it out, if he could. He would drive it out, if he 
could. His experience at this stage, then, is the result 
of no voluntary effort upon his part, but of the simple 
reaction of law, the most dispassionate and unselfish of 
all realities, against its violator. In the conscience, that 
part of the human constitution which we have seen to 
be the proper seat and organ for such an operation, the 
commandment is making itself felt again, not as at 
first in the form of command, but of condemnation. 
The free agent has responsibly disobeyed the holy, 
just, and good statute, and is now feeling the tremen- 
dous reaction of it in his own moral being. This re- 
morse, or damnatory emotion, therefore, is the work of 
God's law, and not of man's will. There is, conse- 
quently, very little of the selfish and the earthly, but 
much of the unearthly and the eternal, in the trans- 
gressor's experience held at this point. He can take no 
merit to himself, because it is of such an intensely 
ethical and spiritual character, since the entire process, 
so far as he is concerned, is involuntary and organic. It 



296 THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 

is provided for in his judicial constitution, and as an 
operation within himself it is to be regarded, not as the 
working of his corrupt heart, but as the infliction of Di- 
vine retribution and justice, in and through the judicial 
faculty. Man can take no merit to himself because he 
possesses a power that condemns evil, and distresses 
therefor. For this is the workmanship of the Creator, 
and it exists in hell as well as heaven. The workings 
of conscience are as much beyond the control of the 
will, are as truly organic, as those of the sympathetic 
nerve, and therefore are worthy of neither praise nor 
blame. Given conscience and sin, within one and the 
same soul, and remorse must follow as a matter of 
necessity. Hence remorse is never made the subject of 
a command. Man is commanded to melt down in 
godly sorrow, but never to be filled with remorse ; for 
this is provided for in the moral constitution given by 
Him who makes it the fiery chariot by which he him- 
self rides into man's being, in majesty, to judgment. 

Hence this sense of ill-desert, though its sensorium is 
the human conscience, must be traced back for its first 
cause, to a yet deeper ground, and a yet higher origin. 
For if it were a fact, that remorse had nothing but a 
human source, though that source were the highest and 
most venerable of the human faculties, and the trans- 
gressor should know it, he could overcome and suppress 
it. Nothing that has a merely finite origin can be a 
permanent source of misery; and if the victim of re- 
morse could but be certain that the just and holy God 
has had nothing to do with the origin of the distress 
within him, he could ultimately expel it from his breast. 
If he could be assured that the terrible emotion which 
follows the commission of evil, though welling up from 
the lowest springs of his own nature, yet has no con- 



THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 297 

nection with the nether fountains of the Divine Essence, 
he could put an end to his torment. For no man is 
afraid of himself alone, and irrespective of his Maker 
and Judge. That which renders a portion of our com- 
mon and finite humanity terrible to us, is the fact, that 
it is grounded in and supported by that which is more 
than human. In the instance before us, the highest 
part of the human constitution supports itself by strik- 
ing its deep roots into the holiness and justice of the 
Godhead ; and therefore it is that conscience makes 
cowards of us all, and its remorse is a feeling that is 
invincible by the strongest finite will, and requires, in 
order to its extinction, the blood of atonement. 

We are, therefore, compelled back into the being and 
character of God, for the ultimate origin of this sense 
of guilt, and this "fearful looking-for of judgment and 
fiery indignation." And why should we not be ? If 
Justice is living and sensitive anywhere, it must be so 
in its eternal seat and home. If law is jealous for its 
own authority and maintenance anywhere, it must be in 
that Being to whom all eyes in the universe are turned 
with the inquiry : " Shall not the Judge of all the earth 
do right?" What, therefore, conscience affirms, in the 
transgressor's case, God affirms, and is the first to affirm. 
What, therefore, conscience feels in respect to the sin- 
ner's transgression, God feels, and is the first to feel. 
What, therefore, conscience requires in order that it 
may cease to punish the guilty spirit, God requires and 
is the first to require. In fine, all that is requisite in 
order to the satisfaction and pacification of conscience 
towards the sinful soul in which it dwells, is also requi- 
site in order to the satisfaction and "propitiation" of 
God the Just ; and it is requisite in the former case only 
because it is first requisite in the latter. The subjective 



298 THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 

In man is shaped by the objective in God, and not the 
objective in God by the subjective in man. The con- 
sciousness of the conscience is the reflex of the con- 
sciousness of God. 

But what, now, does conscience require, in order that 
it may become pacified with respect to past transgres- 
sion ? We answer, simply and solely an atonement for 
that past transgression ; simply and solely that just inflic- 
tion which is due to guilt. That is a powerful, because 
profoundly truthful, passage in Coleridge's play of " Re- 
morse," in which the guilty and guilt-smitten Ordonio is 
stabbed by Alhadra, the wife of the murdered Isidore. 
As the steel drinks his own heart's blood, he utters the 
one single word "Atonement!" His self-accusing spirit, 
which is wrung with its remorseful recollections, and 
which the warm and hearty forgiveness of his injured 
brother has not been able to soothe in the least, actually 
feels its first gush of relief only as the avenging knife 
enters, and crime meets penalty.* And how often, in 
the annals of guilt, is this principle illustrated! The 
criminal has wandered up and down the earth, vainly 
seeking repose of conscience, but finds none until he 
surrenders himself to the penalty of law. Those are 
the only hopeful executions, in which the guilty goes to 
his death justifying the judicial sentence that condemns 
him, and, as a completing act of the solemn mental 
process, appropriating that yet more august and trans- 
cendent expiation which has been made for man by a 
higher Being than man. A guilty conscience, when it 

* Remorse, Act V. Scene 1. Coleridge's Works, VII. p. 401. — The 
psychology of crime, or the analysis of the consciousness of guilt (Schuld- 
bewusztseyn), is a portion of mental philosophy that has been generally 
neglected. The only treatise specifically devoted to it, that we have met 
with, is the Criminal-Psycitologie of Heinroth. 



THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 299 

has come to a clear consciousness, wants its guilt expi- 
ated by the infliction of punishment. It feels that 
strange unearthly thirst of which Christ speaks, and for 
which he asserts that his blood of atonement is "drink 
indeed." It cannot be made peaceful except through 
the medium of a judicial infliction ; that is to say, of a 
particular species of suffering that will expiate its guilt. 
The mere offer of kindness, or good-humor, to remit the 
sin without any regard to that eternal law of retribution 
which is now distressing the soul by its righteous claim, 
does not meet the ethical wants. The moral sense, 
when in normal action, feels the necessity that crime be 
punished. Hence the human conscience is a faculty 
that is unappeased, and gnaws like a blind worm, until 
it hears of the Lamb, the Atonement, of God, that 
taketh away the guilt of the world. Hence, however 
much the selfish heart may desire to escape at the 
expense of right and justice, the impartial conscience 
can do no such thing. Before this judicial faculty can 
be pacified, crime must incur penalty, transgression 
must receive an exact recompense of reward. When 
this is done, there is entire pacification ; there is great 
peace, such as death, and Satan the accuser, and the 
day of judgment, and the bar of justice, and the final 
doom, cannot disturb with a single ripple. 

For the correlate to guilt is punishment; and nothing 
but the correlate itself can perform the function of a 
correlate. A liquid, for example, is the correlative to 
thirst, and nothing that is not liquid, however nutritious, 
and necessary to human life in other relations, it may 
be, can be a substitute for it. There may be the " fat 
kidneys of wheat," in superabundance, but if there be 
not also the " brook in the way," the human body must 
die of thirst. In like manner, a judicial infliction, or 



300 THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 

suffering- for purposes of justice, is the only means by 
which culpability can be extinguished. Sanctification, 
or holiness, in this reference, is powerless, because there 
is nothing penal, nothing correlated to guilt, in it, The 
Tridentine method of justification by sanctification, is 
not an adaptation of means to ends. So far as the 
guilt of an act, — in other words, its obligation to pun- 
ishment, — is concerned, if the transgressor, or his ac- 
cepted substitute,* has endured the infliction that is set 



* Accepted by the law and lawgiver. The primal source of law has no 
power to abolish penalty any more than to abolish law, but it has full power 
to substitute penalty. In case of a substitution, however, it must be a strict 
equivalent, and not a fictitious or nominal one. It would contravene the 
attribute of justice, instead of satisfying it, should God, for instance, by an 
arbitrary act of will, substitute the sacrifice of bulls and goats for the penalty 
due to man ; or if he should offset way finite oblation against the infinite 
demerit of moral evil. The inquiry whether the satisfaction of justice by 
Christ's atonement was a strict and literal one, has a practical and not merely 
theoretical importance. A guilt-smitten conscience is exceedingly timorous, 
and hence, if there be room for doubting the strict adequacy of the judicial 
provision that has been made for satisfying the claims of law, a perfect 
peace, the " peace of God," is impossible. Hence the doctrine of a plen- 
ary satisfaction by an infinite substitute is the only one that ministers to 
evangelical repose. The dispute upon this point has sometimes, at least, 
resulted from a confusion of ideas and terms. Strict equivalency has been 
confounded with identity. The assertion that Christ's death is a literal 
equivalent for the punishment due to mankind, has been supposed to be 
the same as the assertion, that it is identical with it ; and a punishment 
identical with that due to man would involve remorse, and endless dura- 
tion. But. identity of punishment is ruled out by the principle of substi- 
tution or vicar iousness, — a principle that is conceded by all who hold the 
doctrine of atonement. The penalty endured by Christ, therefore, must 
be a substituted, and not an identical one. And the only question that re- 
mains is, whether that which is to be substituted shall be of a strictly equal 
value with that, the place of which it takes, or whether it may be of an in- 
ferior value, — and it must be one or the other. When a loan of one hun- 
dred dollars in silver is repaid by one hundred dollars in gold, there is a 
substitution of one metal for another. It is not an identical payment ; for 
this would require the return of the very identical hundred pieces of silver, 
the ipsissima pecunia, that had been loaned. But it is a strictly and literally 



THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 301 

over against it, the law is satisfied, and the obligation 
to punishment is discharged. And so far as guilt, or 
obligation to punishment is concerned, until the affixed 
penalty has been endured, by himself or his accepted 
substitute, he is a guilty man, do what else he may. 
Even if he should "be renewed and sanctified by the 
Spirit of God, this sanctification has in it nothing 
expiatory, or correlative to guilt, and therefore could not 
remove his remorse. Food is good and necessary, but 
it cannot slake thirst. Personal holiness is excellent 
and indispensable, but it cannot perform the function 
of atonement. Hence sanctification is wrought by 
spiritual influences, but justification by expiating blood. 
The former is the work of the third Person in the 
Trinity ; the latter is that of the second. Hence, when 
the convicted man is distressed because of what the 
Psalmist denominates the " iniquity of sin," its intrinsic 
guilty quality, in distinction from its miserable conse- 
quences, he craves expiation sometimes with a hunger 
like that of famine. And hence his desperate endeavor 
to atone for the past, until he discovers that it is impos- 
sible. Then he cries with David : " Thou desirest not 
sacrifice" — such atonement as I can render is inade- 
quate — "else would I give it"* Taking him at this 

equivalent payment. All claims are cancelled by it. In like manner, when 
the suffering and death of God incarnate is substituted for that of the crea- 
ture, the satisfaction rendered to law is strictly plenary, though not identi- 
cal with that which is exacted from the transgressor. It contains the ele- 
ment of infinitude, which is the element of value in the case, with even 
greater precision than the satisfaction of the creature does ; because it is the 
suffering of a strictly infinite Person in a finite time, while the latter is only 
the suffering of a finite person in an endless but not strictly infinite time. 
A strictly infinite duration would be without beginning, as well as without 
end. 

* The true and accm*ate rendering of Psalm li. 7, is not "purge me with 
hyssop," hut "atone me (rJStqriP) with hyssop." David, in the poignancy 



302 THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 

point in his experience, his desire is fox justification. He 
wants, first of all, to be pardoned; and, be it observed, 
to be pardoned upon those just and eternal principles that 
will not give way in the great judicial emergencies of this 
life and the life to come. Then he will commence the 
good fight of faith. Then he will run in the way of 
obedience with an exulting heart, because he is no 
longer under condemnation. " Whom he justifies, them 
he glorifies." 

Such, it is conceived, is the general doctrine of atone- 
ment, to be deduced from the sharp and pointed texts 
of scripture cited in the outset of this discussion. The 
Christian atonement possesses both an objective and a 
subjective validity; it is a satisfaction for the ethical 
nature of both God and man. 

Having thus contemplated the inward and metaphys- 
ical nature of that atoning work of incarnate Deity, 
which is the most stupendous fact in the" history of the 
World, and one upon which all its religious hopes and 
welfare hang, we naturally turn, in conclusion, to the 
more external and practical aspects of the great theme. 
And the application of the doctrine will be found to be 
all the more acceptable to the Christian heart, and pro- 
fitable for Christian edification, if the principles and 
theory from which it flows are profound and thorough. 
The cup of cold water is all the more grateful to the 
thirsty soul, if it has been drawn up from the deep 
wells ; and it is certain that divine truth gains, rather 
than loses, in popular and practical efficiency, upon 
both the mind and heart, if it be sought for in its purest 
and most central sources. That view of the work of 
Christ which represents it as meeting all the ethical 

of his consciousness of guilt, prays, not for a cleansing merely but, for an 
expiatory cleansing. 






THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 303 

necessities of both the divine and the human natures, 
is well fitted to inspire belief and trust in it, and to 
draw out the heart towards its Blessed Author. 

1. One of the first and obvious inferences, then, from 
the subject as it has been unfolded, is, that an atone- 
ment for sin is no arbitrary requirement on the part of 
God. If the positions taken in this discussion are cor- 
rect, the doctrine of expiation contains a metaphysique, 
and is defensible at the bar of philosophic reason. 

One great obstacle to the reception of the evangelical 
system lies in the fact, that very many are of opinion 
that the scripture method of forgiving sin is needlessly 
embarrassed by a sacrificial expiation. " Why should 
not God," they ask, " forgive the creature of his foot- 
stool in the same manner that an earthly father does his 
child? Why does he not, at once, and without any of 
this apparatus of atonement, bid the erring one go his 
way, with the assurance that the past is forgotten ? Is 
not this expiation, even though made by the Deity him- 
self, after all, a hinderance rather than an encourage- 
ment to an approach to the eternal throne ? Is it not, 
at least, something that is not strictly necessary, and 
might have been dispensed with?" This lurking or 
open doubt, with regard to the rationality and intrinsic 
necessity of an atonement for sin, cuts the root of all 
evangelical faith in a large class of men. 

Indeed, it may be a question whether the preacher in 
Christian lands has not a more difficult task to perform 
for a certain class of minds, in reference to the doctrine 
of Christ crucified, than the missionary in pagan lands 
has ; and whether Christian theology itself would not 
have an easier labor than it now has, to vindicate the 
ways of God to man, in the respect of which we are 
speaking, if the Old-Ethnic, or what is far better, the 



304 THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 

Old-Jewish ideas respecting guilt and retribution were 
more current than they are in a certain class in nominal 
Christendom. Taking a portion of men in the modern 
civilized world as a sample, it would seem as if the 
unregenerate Christian world does not possess such a 
spontaneous and irrepressible conviction that guilt must 
be punished, as did the old unsophisticated Pagan 
world.* The system of bloody sacrifices, an emphatic 
acknowledgment of this great truth, was almost univer- 
sal among them ; and the doctrine that mere sorrow for 
transgression is a sufficient ground for its forgiveness, 
had little force. The Grecian Nemesis, or personifica- 
tion of vindicative justice, was a divinity to whom even 
Jove himself was subject. The ancient religious insti- 
tutions and ceremonials, fanciful and irrational as they 
were in most of their elements, yet distinctly recognized, 
through their sacrificial cultus, the amenability of man 
to law, and his culpability. Add to this, the workings 
of natural conscience, and we have, even in the midst 
of polytheism, quite a strong influence at work to keep 
the pagan mind healthy and sound upon the relations 
of guilt to justice. Men could not well deny the need 



* The barbarians of Melita, when they saw the venomous beast hang- 
ing upon the hand of Paul, said among themselves : " No doubt this man 
is a murderer, whom though he hath escaped the sea, yet vengeance (Ai/ctj) 
suffereth not to live." Their ethical instinct was sound and healthy, though 
their knowledge of the facts in the case was inaccurate. But when, in the 
middle of the nineteenth century, and upon a spot where the edifices and 
emblems of government cast their solemn shadows, a human being, in the 
heat and fury of his heart, slays his foe to mutilation in the illegal redress 
of his own wrongs, and the public conscience is found to be so debauched 
that only one in one hundred of the resident population condemns the 
deed, the comparison between Christendom and Paganism is humiliating. 
Such occurrences illustrate the difference between private revenge and 
public justice, and prove that the only security which society has against 
the former, is in the rigid and impartial execution of the latter. 






THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 305 

of sin-expiation before whose eyes the blood of the 
piacular victim was constantly smoking, in accordance 
with a custom that had come down from their ances- 
tors, and which fell in so accordantly with the workings 
of a remorseful conscience. 

But a portion of the modern world have made use 
of Christianity itself to undermine the very foundations 
of Christianity. The Christian religion, by furnishing 
that one great sacrifice and real atonement, to which all 
other sacrifices look and point, has of course abolished 
the system of external sacrifices, and now that class of 
minds who live under its outward and civilizing influ- 
ences without appropriating its inward and spiritual 
blessings, reject the legal and judicial elements which it 
contains, and deny the necessity of satisfying justice in 
the plan of redemption. There is nothing in the reli- 
gious rites and customs under which they live to elicit 
the sense of guilt ; and hence, from an inadequate 
knowledge of their own consciences and a defective 
apprehension of Christianity, they strenuously combat 
that fundamental truth, " without the shedding of blood 
there is no remission," upon which Christianity itself is 
founded, and in reference to which alone it has any 
w~orth or preciousness for a guilt-smitten soul. 

The same tendency to underestimate the fact of 
human criminality, and the value of the piacular pro- 
vision for it in the gospel, is seen also in the individual. 
How difficult it is to bring the person, for whose spirit- 
ual interests we are anxious, to see himself in the light 
of law and condemnation ! How we ourselves shrink 
from the clear, solemn assertion of his culpability, and 
turn aside to enlarge upon the unworthiness or the un- 
happiness of his sin! When we make the attempt to 
charge home guilt upon him, how lacking we are in 



306 THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 

that tender solemnity, and earnest truthfulness of tone, 
which make the impression ! And, even if we have 
succeeded in wakening his conscience to a somewhat 
normal action in this respect, how swiftly does he elude 
the terrible but righteous feeling, which alone can pre- 
pare him for the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus ! 

When we pass up into the Christian experience, we 
discover the same fact in a different form and degree. 
How difficult does the believer find it to obtain such a 
clear and transparent conception of his own guiltiness, 
that the atoning work of his Redeemer becomes all 
luminous before his eyes, and he knows instantaneously 
that he needs it, and that it is all he needs ! Usually, 
this crystal clearness of vision is reserved for certain 
critical moments in his religious history, when he must 
have it or die. Usually it is the hour of affliction, or 
sickness, or death, that affords this rare and unutterably 
tranquillizing view of the guilty self and the dying 
Lord. " We have the blood of Christ," said the dying 
Schleiermacher, as, in his last moments, he began to 
count up the grounds of his confidence on the brink of 
the invisible world. Here was a mind uncommonly 
contemplative and profound ; that had made the spirit- 
ual world its home, as it were, for many long years of 
theological study and reflection ; that, in its tone and 
temper, seemed to be prepared to pass over into the 
supernatural realm without any misgivings or appre- 
hensions; that had mused long and speculated subtly 
upon the nature of moral evil ; that had sounded the 
depths of reason and revelation with no short plum- 
met-line, — here was a man who, now that death had 
actually come, and the responsible human will must 
now encounter Holy Justice face to face, found that 
nothing but the blood, the atonement, of Jesus Christ 



THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 307 

could calm the perturbations of his planet-like spirit. 
The errors and inadequate statements of his theological 
system, which cluster mostly about this very doctrine 
of expiation, are tacitly renounced in the implied con- 
fession of guiltiness and need of atonement, contained 
these few simple words : " We have the blood of 
Christ." 

It is related that bishop Butler, in his last days draw- 
ing nearer to that dread tribunal where the highest and 
the lowest must alike stand in judgment, trembled in 
spirit, and turned this way and that for tranquillity of 
conscience. One of his clergy, among other texts, 
quoted to him the words : " The blood of Jesus Christ 
cleanseth from all sin." A flush of peace and joy passed, 
like the bland west wind, through his fevered con- 
science, as he made answer: " I have read those words 
a thousand times, but I never felt their meaning as 
now." And who does not remember that the final hours 
of the remarkably earnest, but too legal, life of the 
great English Moralist were lighted up with a peace 
that he had never been able to attain in the days of his 
health, by the evangelism of a humble curate ? 

Such facts and phenomena as these, evince that it is 
difficult for man to know sin as guilt, and thoroughly 
to apprehend Christ as a Priest and a Sacrifice. But 
one of the best correctives of this tendency to under- 
estimate both guilt and expiation, is found in the clear 
perception that the two are necessarily related to each 
other, and that consequently the death of the Redeemer 
has nothing arbitrary in it. When one is convinced 
that Christ "must needs have suffered," he is relieved 
from the doubts respecting the meaning and efficacy of 
the atonement, and surrenders his conscience directly to 
its pacifying influence and power. He that doubteth is 



308 THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 

damned, in this respect also. The least shaking of be- 
lief that this great gospel provision is absolutely neces- 
sary, if sinners are to be saved ; the faintest querying 
whether it may not, in the nature of things, have been 
a superfluity ; so far as it tends at all, tends to dull the 
edge of man's contrition, and destroy the keenness of 
his sense of the Divine pity. 

It has often been remarked, that the Passion of the 
Redeemer performs two functions. It not merely re- 
moves the sense of guilt, but it also elicits it. The 
experience of the Moravian missionaries is frequently 
cited to prove that a contemplation of the sufferings and 
death of Christ sometimes accomplishes what the naked 
exhibition of the law fails to accomplish, in bringing 
men to a sense of their sinfulness. The stern com- 
mandment had been applied to the hardened conscience 
of the savage, and iron met iron. The pity of a dying, 
atoning High Priest was shown, and the rock gushed 
out water. And such, undoubtedly, is often the case in 
the history of conversions. But shall we not find in 
this instance, also, that the force and energy of the im- 
pression made, results from a perception, more or less 
clear, that this death of the Substitute was inexorably 
necessary, in order to the criminal's release ? The ope- 
rations of the human mind are wonderfully swift, and 
difficult to follow or trace. Though the Esquimaux 
passed through no long process of reasoning, he felt in 
his conscience the unavoidableness of that mysterious 
Passion of that mysterious Person, in case his own 
wicked soul was to be spared the just inflictions of the 
future. By a very rapid but perfectly legitimate con- 
clusion, he inferred the magnitude of his guilt from the 
greatness and necessity of the expiation. For suppose 
the lurking query, to which we have alluded, had sprung 



THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 309 

up in his mind just at this moment, and instead of the 
felt necessity of an atoning sacrifice, the faint querying 
had arisen whether his sin were not venial without the 
satisfaction of justice, would he have instantaneously 
melted down in contrition ? So long as men are pos- 
sessed with the feeling that the New Testament method 
of salvation is an abitrary one, containing elements and 
provisions lhat might have been different, or that are 
superfluous, they will receive little or no moral impres- 
sion from it. But when they see plainly, that in all its 
parts and particles it refers directly to what is ethical in 
both themselves and the Eternal Judge, and is necessi- 
tated by the best portion of their own constitution, and 
by the perfect nature of the Godhead, they will then 
draw a very quick and accurate inference with respect 
to the intrinsic nature of that transgression which has 
introduced such a dire' and stark necessity. When a 
man realizes that the great and eternal God cannot 
pardon his individual sins except through a passion that 
wrings great drops of blood from every pore of incar- 
nate Deny, he realizes what is involved in the trans- 
gression of moral law. 

2, A second obvious inference from the doctrine, that 
the sacrifice of Christ is a satisfaction for both the Di- 
vine and the human nature, is, that such an atonement 
is thorough and complete. It leaves nothing unsatisfied, 
or dissatisfied, either in God's holy nature or in man's 
moral sense. The work is ample and reliable. 

This is a feature of the utmost value and importance 
in a scheme of Redemption. For no method will be 
put to a more fiery trial, ultimately, than the gospel 
method of salvation. It undergoes some severe tests 
here in time. The dying-bed draped with the recollec- 
tion of past sins and transgressions, the pangs of re- 



310 THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 

morse shooting through the conscience, and the fears 
for the future undulating through the whole being, — 
(all this solemn experience before the soul shoots the 
gulf between time and eternity, calls for a most "sover- 
eign remedy." And we may be certain that the disclos- 
ures and revelations that are to be made in the other 
world, and particularly upon the day of judgment, will 
subject the atoning work of the Redeemer to .tests and 
trials such as no other work, and especially no "dead 
work" of a moralist, can endure for an instant. The 
energy of justice, and the energy of conscience, and the 
power of memory, and the searchings of God the Holy 
Ghost, will at that bar reach their height and combina- 
tion ; and any provision that shall legitimately counter- 
vail that energy, and enable the human soul to stand 
tranquil under such revelations, and beneath such claims, 
will be infinite and omnipotent indeed. But the be- 
liever need never fear lest the work of the Eternal 
Word, who was made flesh, the co-eqaal Son of the 
Eternal Father, prove inadequate under even such 
crucial tests. He needs only fear lest his feeble, waver- 
ing faith grasp it too insecurely. If he does but set his 
feet upon it, he will find it the Rock of Ages. All 
judicial claims are cancelled, because the oblation to 
justice is an infinite one. "There is no condemnation 
to them which are in Christ Jesus."* 

For we have seen that the very mercy of God, in the 
last analysis, consists in the entire satisfaction of God's 
justice by God himself, for the helpless criminal. What 
method of Redemption can be conceived of, more per- 
fectly sure and trustworthy than this ? " What com- 



* Michael Angelo, that loftiest and most religious of artists, gives ex- 
pression, in the following sonnet, to this natmal shrinking of the soul in 



THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 311 

passion," says Anselm, " can equal the words of God 
the Father addressed to the sinner condemned to eter- 
nal punishment, and having no means of redeeming 
himself: 'Take my only -begotten Son, and make him 
an offering for thyself;' or the words of the Son : ' Take 
me and ransom thy soul?' For this is what both say, 
when they invite and draw us to faith in the gospel. 
And can anything be more just than for God to remit 
all debt, when in this way he receives a satisfaction 
greater than all the debt, provided only it be offered 
with the right feeling?"* " The pardon of sin," says an 
old English divine, "is not merely an act of mercy, but 
also an act of justice in God." By this he means that 
mercy and justice are concurrent in the gospel method 
of Redemption, — mercy satisfies justice, and justice 
acknowledges the satisfaction. " What abundant cause 
of comfort," he adds, " may this be to all believers, that 
God's justice as well as his mercy shall acquit them ! 
that that attribute of God, at the apprehension of which 
they are wont to tremble, should interpose on their 



view of the fiery judicial trial that awaits it, and also to the cheerful reas- 
surance induced by the recollection of Christ's Passion : 

"Despite thy promises. O Lord, 't would seem 
Too much to hope that even love like Thine 
Can overlook my countless wanderings : 
And yet Thy blood helps us to comprehend 
That if Thy pangs for us were measureless, 
No less beyond all measure is thy grace." 

Harford's Life of Angelo, II. 166. 

How immensely deeper is the intuition of divine things, how immensely 
clearer is the insight into the nature and mutual relations of God and man, 
which is indicated by such a sonnet from the soul of him who poised the 
dome of St. Peter's, and crowded the frescoes of the Sistine chapel with 
grandeur and beauty, than that of the modern brood of dilettanti, as ex- 
pressed in much of the current literature, and the current art. 
* Cur Deus homo ? II. 20. 



312 THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 

behalf, and plead for them ! And yet through the all- 
sufficient expiation and atonement that Christ hath 
made for our sins, this mystery is effected, and justice 
itself brought over, from being a formidable adversary, 
to be our party, and to plead for us. Therefore the 
apostle tells us that God is faithful and just to forgive 
us our sins."* 

Consonant with this is the well-known language of 
the elder Edwards : " It is," he says, " so ordered now, 
that the glory of the attribute of Divine justice requires 
the salvation of those that believe. The justice of God 
that [irrespective of the atonement] required man's 
damnation, and seemed inconsistent with his salvation, 
now [having respect to the atonement] as much re- 
quires the salvation of those that believe in Christ [and 
thereby appropriate the atonement], as ever before it 
required their damnation. Salvation is an absolute 
debt to the believer from God, so that he may in jus- 
tice demand it on the ground of what his Surety has 
done."f Do these last words sound rash ? But scruti- 

* Bp. EzeJciel Hopkins's Exposition of the Lord's Prayer. Works, I. 124. 

t Works, IV. 1 50. New York Ed. For the soteriology of this eminent 
writer, see his discourses on " Justification by Faith alone," " The wisdom 
of God displayed in the way of salvation," and " Satisfaction for sin." 
Among his positions are the following : Justification frees from all obliga- 
tion to eternal punishment (IV. 78, 104, 150). Christ's suffering is equiv- 
alent to the eternal suffering of a finite creature (IV. 101, 551). Christ 
experienced the wrath of God (IV. 182, 195). God's wrath is appeased by 
the atonement (IV. 142). God cannot accept an atonement that falls short 
of the full claims of justice (IV. 94). The voluntary substitute is, in this 
capacity, under obligation to suffer the punishment due to the sinner (IV. 
96, 137). Justice does not abate any of its claims in the plan of redemp- 
tion (IV. 140, 552). Christ satisfied "revenging," or distributive, justice 
(IV. 150, 189). 

Samuel Hopkins is equally explicit in maintaining the theory of a strict 
satisfaction, as is evident from the following : " One important and neces- 
sary part of the work of the Redeemer of man was to make atonement 



THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 



31; 



nize them. " Salvation is an absolute debt to the 
believer on the ground of what his Surety has done;'' 1 not 
on the ground, therefore, of anything that the believer 
has done. It is merely saying, that the soul which feels 
its own desert of damnation, may plead the merit of 
Christ with entire confidence that it cancels all legal 
claims, and that there is nothing outstanding and un- 

for their sins, by suffering in his own person the penalty or curse of the law, 
under which, by transgression, they had fallen .... The sufferings of 
Christ were, therefore, for sin, and consequently must be the evil which sin 
deserves, and that to which the sinner was exposed, and which he must have 
suffered had not Christ suffered it in his stead, or that which is equivalent. 
.... The Mediator did not suffer precisely the same kind of pain, in all 
respects, which the sinner suffers when the curse is executed on him. He did 
not suffer that particular kind of pain which is the necessary attendant, or 
natural consequence, of being a sinner, and which none but the sinner can 
suffer. But this is only a circumstance of the punishment of sin, and not 
of the essence of it. The whole penalty of the law may be suffered, and the evil 
suffered may be as much, and as great, without suffering that particular sort of 
pain. Therefore, Christ, though without sin, might suffer the whole penalty, 
— that is, as much and as great evil as the law denounces against transgres- 
sion. The evil which sinners may suffer, on whom the penalty of the law 
is inflicted, may, and doubtless will, differ in many circumstances, and not 
be precisely of the same kind in all respects, and yet each one of them 
suffer the penalty of the same law .... The evil of the sufferings of 
Christ, being, in the magnitude of it, commensurate with the dignity and 
worth of his person, is equal to, is as great as, the evil which is threatened to 
the transgressors of the law, and as great as the sinner deserves ; yea, it is as 
great as the endless sufferings of mankind .... The curse of the law 
consists in the infinite evil, pain, and suffering which sin deserves. He who 
suffers this for sin, suffers the curse of the law, is accursed, or made a 
curse. Jesus Christ suffered this curse, the infinite natural evil in which the 
penalty or the curse of the law consists ; and in suffering it for sinners, and in 
their stead, was made a curse. This might be consistent with his having 
the approbation of the Father, and his favor and love to the highest degree. 
The displeasure of God, which was the cause of his sufferings when ho 
voluntarily took, and stood in, the place of sinners, was displeasure with 
sin and the sinner, and not with him who suffered, the state of the case be- 
ing fully understood by the spectators .... It is evident from scripture, 
that the law of God does admit of a substitute, both in obeying the precepts, 
and suffering the penalty of it." — Hopkins's Works, I. pp. 321 — 341. Doc- 
trinal Tract Society's Ed. 



314 THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 

covered by that Divine atonement upon which it relies 
for justification. It is simply asserting that God incar- 
nate, the redeeming Deity, can demand, upon principles 
of justice, the release of a soul that trusts solely in his 
atoning death ; because by that death he has completely, 
and not partially, satisfied eternal justice for it, and in 
its stead.* They are the bold words of a very cautious 

* It is needless to remark, that Edwards does not concede that the mere 
atonement itself gives any and every man a claim upon God for the benefits 
of the atonement, — as is sometimes argued by the advocates of universal 
salvation. God is under no obligation to make an atonement for the sin of 
the world ; and, after he has made one, he is at perfect liberty to apply it to 
whom he pleases, or not to apply it at all. The atonement is his, and not 
man's, and he may do what he will with his own. Hence, according to 
Edwards, two distinct acts of sovereignty on the part of God are necessary 
in order to a soul's salvation. The px-oviding of an atonement in the first 
place, is a sovereign act ; and then the application, or giving over, of the 
atonement, when provided, to any particular elected sinner, is a second act 
of sovereignty. The sufferings and death of Christ constitute the atone- 
ment ; and even if not a single soul should appropriate it by the act of faith, 
it would be the same expiatory oblation still, though unapplied. Hence, 
the second of these sovereign acts is as necessary as the first, in order to 
salvation. But when both of these acts of sovereignty have taken place, — 
when the atonement has been made, and has actually been given over to 
and accepted by an individual, — then, says Edwards, it is a matter of strict 
justice that the penal claims of the law be not exacted from the believer, 
because this would be to exact them twice ; once from Christ, and once 
from one to whom, by the supposition, Christ's satisfaction has actually 
been made over by a sovereign act of God. Eor God to do this, would be 
to pour contempt upon his own atonement. It would be a confession that 
his own provision is insufficient to satisfy the claims of law, and needs to be 
supplemented by an additional infliction upon the believer. It would be 
an acknowledgment that the atonement, when it comes to be actually tested 
in an individual instance, fails to satisfy the claims of justice, and therefore 
is an entire failure. The sum of money which was given to the poor 
debtor, with the expectation that it was large enough completely to liqui- 
date his debt, is found to fall short, and leaves him still in the debtor's 
prison, from which he canDot come out " until he has paid the uttermost 
farthing." 

That this is a correct representation of the views of Edwards is evident 
from the following answer which he gives to the question : What does 
God's sovereignty in the salvation of man imply 3 — " God's sovereignty 



THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 



315 



and accurate thinker ; but are they any bolder than that 
challenging jubilant shout of St. Paul : " Who is he 
that condemeth ? It is Christ that died." As if, fling- 
ing his voice out into all worlds, and all universes, he 
asked : " What claims are those which the blood of the 
Eternal Son of God has not been able to satisfy ? Is the 
atonement of the great God Himself not equal to the 
demands of his law ? Is the Deity feebler upon the side 
of his expiation, than upon the side of his retribution ? " 
It is a false humility, and not unmingled with a legal 
spirit, that would prevent the believer from joining in 
these bold and confident statements respecting the am- 
plitude and completeness of the work of his atoning 
Lord and God. He need be under no concern lest he 
underestimate the attribute of justice, if he make this 
hearty and salient evangelical feeling his own. He dis- 
parages no attribute of God, when he magnifies and 
makes his boast in the atonement of God. Christ was 
equal to all he undertook ; and he undertook to satisfy 
the claims of the Divine law for the sin of the world, 
down to the least jot and tittle ; to pay the immense debt 

in the salvation of men implies that God can either bestow salvation on any 
of the children of men, or refuse it, without any prejudice to the glory of 
any of his attributes, except where he has been pleased to declare that he will or 
will not bestow it. It cannot be said absolutely, as the case now stands, that 
God can, without any prejudice to the honor of any of his attributes, bestow 
salvation on any of the children of men, or refuse it, because concerning 
some, God has been pleased to declare either that he will or that he will not 
bestow salvation on them ; and thus to bind himself by his own promise. 
And concerning some he has been pleased to declare that he never will be- 
stow salvation upon them; viz., those who have committed the sin against 
the Holy Ghost. Hence, as the case now stands, he is obliged ; he cannot 
bestow salvation in one case, or refuse it in the other, without prejudice to 
the honor of his truth. But God exercised his sovereignty in making these 
declarations. God was not obliged to promise that he would save all who 
believe in Christ ; nor was he obliged to declare that he who committed the 
sin against the Holy Ghost should never be forgiven. But it pleased him so 
to declare." — Edwards's Works, IV. 530. N. Y. Ed. 



316 THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 

to the uttermost farthing. "Think not," be says, " that 
I am come to destroy the law or the prophets. I am 
not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For Verily I say 
unto you, Till heaven and earth pas?, one jot or one 
tittle shall in no wise pass from the law till all be ful- 
filled." And the incarnate Deity did what he under- 
took. He had a view of the extent and spirituality of 
law, and of the demerit of sin, such as no finite mind 
is capable of entertaining, and he knew whereof he 
affirmed when, at the close of his life of sorrow and his 
death of passion and agony, he bowed his head and 
gave up the ghost, with the words, significant beyond all 
conception : "It is finished, — the oblation is complete." 
Jesus Christ, the God- Man, in the garden of Gethsem- 
ane and on the middle cross of Calvary, had a con- 
ception of the rigor of justice and the exaction of law, 
such as no human or angelic mind can ever have in 
equal degree ; and the believer may be certain that when 
He invites him to rest his complete justification, and 
the entire satisfaction of all judicial claims, before that 
law, upon what He has wrought in reference to it, he is 
not invited to a procedure that will be a disparagement, 
or dishonor, either to law or to justice. 

Man is not straitened in the atoning work of incar- 
nate Deity. He is straitened in his own blind and un- 
believing soul. He only needs to take a profound view 
of justice, a profound view of sin, and a profound view 
of God's atonement for it, to come out into a region of 
peace, liberty, and joy unspeakable. Feeble views upon 
any one of these subjects debilitate his Christianity. 
He should distinctly see how sacred is the nature of 
justice, and how indefeasible are its claims. He should 
distinctly feel the full impression and energy of this 
attribute. Then he should as distinctly see how com- 



THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 317 

plete and perfect is the liquidation of these holy claims, 
by the death of the incarnate Son of God, — that au- 
gust Personage denominated by the prophet "the 
Wonderful, the Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Ever- 
lasting Father, the Prince of Peace." 

That very interesting mystic of the Middle Ages-, 
Henry Von Suso, enlarging in his poetic manner upon 
the compassion of God towards a sinful world, tells us 
that the " blood of Christ is full of love and red as a 
rose."* This roseate conception of the atonement is 
not the one that will meet the necessities of man's con- 
science, in the solemn hour of his mental anguish and 
his moral fear. There is love unutterable in that blood, 
but it was wrung from a heart to which all merely sen- 
timental affection was as alien as it is to the vengeance 
of eternal fire. He only can appreciate and understand 
that love of principle, that love of self-immolation, who 
sympathizes thoroughly with that regard for the holiness 
and justice of God, united with compassion for lost 
souls, that led the Redeemer to undertake the full expia- 
tion of human guilt. 

Whoever is granted this clear crystalline vision of the 
atonement, will die in peace, and pass through all the 
unknown transport and terror of the day of doom with 
serenity and joy. It ought to be the toil and study of 
the believer to render his conceptions of the work of 
Christ more vivid, simple, and vital. For whatever may 
be the extent of his religious knowledge in other direc- 
tions ; whatever may be the worth of his religious expe- 
rience in other phases ; there is no knowledge and no 
experience that will stand him in such stead, in those 
moments that try the soul, as the experience of the pure 
sense of guilt quenched by the pure blood of Christ 

* '* Minnerichen, rosenfarbenen Blute." 



SYMBOLS AND CONGKEGATIONALISM * 



The constitution of the Congregational Library Associa- 
tion proclaims that it is the object of this society to estab- 
lish a material centre for the denomination, about which it 
shall collect its scattered elements, and from which it shall 
radiate its forces. It is its design, in the language of its 
statutes, " to found and perpetuate a library of books, 
pamphlets, and manuscripts, and a collection of portraits," 
and to lay up in its archives u whatever else shall serve to 
illustrate Puritan history, and promote the general inter- 
ests of Congregationalism." " It shall also be an object 
of the Association," says the constitution, " to secure the 
erection of a suitable building for its library, its meetings, 
and the general purposes of the body." Interpreting 
these articles and statutes in a broad and enterprising 
spirit, we find in them a desire to combine and unify the 
somewhat diffused characteristics of the Congregational 
denomination, by furnishing it a visible centre. This 
species of centre, and this sort of consolidation, though 
not of the highest order, though external in its instrumen- 
talities, and external in many of its results, is nevertheless 
of great importance in the history of any organization. 
The influence of the national temple, the common visible 

* A discourse before the Congregational Library Association, May 25, 
1858. 



320 SYMBOLS AND CONGREGATIONALISM. 

home and resort of all the tribes, upon the Jewish church 
and state, is well known ; and no external event, perhaps 
no event, contributed more to the downfall of the Old 
economy, and the Jewish cultus, and thereby to the prog- 
ress and triumph of the new dispensation with its simpler 
and more spiritual worship, than did the siege of Jerusa- 
lem, and the destruction of the old ancestral temple. 
That building of the pagan temples which began in 
Greece, immediately after the Persian war was brought to 
a glorious close, did more than even that war itself to 
brino; the various Grecian tribes into something akin to 
unity ; and that so-called Sacred War which was signalized 
by the robbing of Delphi, and the scattering of its treas- 
ures, was at once the cause and the effect of the decline 
and destruction of Grecian patriotism, and Grecian unity. 
Mediaeval Catholicism embodied its ideas, and centralized 
its forces, in the great Gothic cathedrals. That outburst 
of architecture in the thirteenth century, when Rheims 
and Rouen, Paris and Cologne, shot up their spires, and 
threw out their Hying buttresses, with a suddenness and 
energy that looks like magic — that majestic series of 
material centres for the Papal church did much to 
strengthen it in its corruption, and to postpone the Refor- 
mation.* 

The power and influence, then, of a centripetal point, 
even though it relate to externals, is not to be despised. It 

* " The 13th century as a building epoch is perhaps the most brilliant 
in the whole history of architecture. Not even the great Pharaonic era 
in Egypt, the age of Pericles in Greece, nor the great period of the 
Roman Empire, will bear comparison with the 13th century in Europe, 
whether we look at the extent of the buildings executed, their wonder- 
ful variety and constructive elegance, the daring imagination that con- 
ceived them, or the power of poetry and of lofty religious feeling that 
is expressed in every feature and every part of them." — Fergusson'a 
Handbook of Architecture, Part II., Book III., c. 9. 



SYMBOLS AND CONGREGATIONALISM. 321 

is indeed true that neither the library, nor the museum, 
neither the collection, nor the edifice in which the collection 
is garnered up, can be a substitute for the living spirit of 
learning in the mind of the individual scholar ; and neither 
can the temple, nor the cathedral, nor any of the meclianism 
of an ecclesiastical denomination, be regarded of equal 
importance with the animating principle of piety in 
the hearts of church members. And yet neither science 
nor religion, neither the state nor the church, can wholly 
neglect these outward instruments of organization and 
union, without somewhat scattering their elements of 
power, and wasting their force. 

Are we not then summoned by this "Library Associa- 
tion" to consider the need of more centripetal force in 
Congregationalism, in order to its greater efficiency as an 
ecclesiastical denomination ? The Congregational edifice, 
the library, and the portrait gallery, imply that we require 
an ecclesiastical home, and are emblematic of the truth 
that the denomination needs to control its tendencies to 
vagueness, and diffusion, and to render its distinguishing 
characteristics more intense by concentration. But this 
cannot be done by merely erecting a building, or collect- 
ing a library and portraits. These are but the secondary, 
though, as we have remarked, the necessary instrumen- 
talities. Our unity, and our consolidation, as one of the 
legitimate churches of Christ in the world, must ulti- 
mately proceed from a deeper and stronger force than 
anything visible and material. We have not been born 
of flesh and blood. "We have been begotten of the will 
of God, with the word of truth, that we should be a kind 
of first fruits of his creatures. Our true growth, and our 
true strength, must lie in the line of our origin and birth. 
The ultimate organizing and centralizing influence, there- 
fore, upon which we must place our main reliance as a 
H* 



322 SYMBOLS AND CONGREGATIONALISM. 

religious denomination, is the doctrine, the truth of God 
This is one and homogeneous, and consequently unifies 
and harmonizes all that comes under its fair and full influ- 
ence. But this supposes that eye sees to eye ; and that 
there is a common doctrinal faith, and a common doctrinal 
creed, for the denomination. 

Let us, then, consider the necessity that exists in Con- 
gregationalism for a stronger symbolical feeling, and a 
bolder confidence in creed-statements, in order to its high- 
est efficiency as a Christian denomination. 

Before proceeding to the discussion of this theme, we 
will cast a swift glance at the ancestral feeling and ten- 
dency on this subject. What was the attitude of the 
fathers and founders of Congregationalism towards the 
old historical theology that had preceded them, and par- 
ticularly towards the Symbols that were then in existence ? 
The answer to this question will require us to notice, 
very briefly, the theological position of the leading minds 
in the formative periods of Congregationalism, and the 
particular public action of the denomination itself. 

It is a fact which will not be disputed, that the master 
spirits among the English Independents of the Cromwel- 
lian period were earnest and strong defenders, not merely 
of the doctrines of the Reformation, but of that particu- 
lar shaping of them which is found in the creeds of the 
Calvinistic division of the Protestants. The English 
church previous to the days of Laud, it is well known, 
sympathized heartily with the theologians of Zurich and 
Geneva, and when that large and learned body of divines 
whose consciences compelled them to dissent from the 
increasing ecclesiasticism of the state establishment came 
out from it, they brought with them the very same dog- 
matic system which had been embodied in the 42 articles 
of Edward Sixth, had been compressed into the 39 arti- 



SYMBOLS AND CONGREGATIONALISM. 323 

cles of Elizabeth, and had been maintained bj prelates 
like Whitgift, and Cranmer, and Usher, as the faith once 
delivered to the saints. As a natural consequence, the 
non-conforming theologians in England, however much 
they differed from one another, and from the old national 
church, upon secondary subjects, were characterized by an 
earnest and intelligent zeal for the old English, which 
was the old Calvinistic, faith and creed. 

The Independents were not second to any in this feeling. 
Thomas Goodwin and John Owen, says Anthony Wood, 
" were the two Atlases and Patriarchs of Independency."* 
These two minds are the true representatives of the 
English Congregationalism of the 17th century, and they 
did more than any others to determine its type and char- 
acter, both in doctrine and practice. Their theological 
position is as well known as that of Calvin himself. 
These minds were, also, of that exact and scientific order 
which requires for its own satisfaction the most unambig- 
uous and self -consistent statement of religions truth. The 
treatises of the individual divine are, commonly, not so 
carefully worded as the articles of the council of divines ; 
from the same cause that the best reasoned political dis- 
quisitions are not so precise in their statements as the 
technical phraseology of the political convention, or the 
political treaty. Yet even the practical treatises of Owen 
and Goodwin bear a much stronger resemblance than is 
common, or commonly practicable, in flowing discourse, 
to the concise and guarded enunciations of the council. 
The very structure of their sermons, and the very style 
of their discourses, evinces that these leading Independ- 
ents were of their own free-will, and with their own clear 
eye, following on in that strait and narrow way of dogma 

* Neale, II., 291. Harper's Ed. 



324: SYMBOLS AND CONGKEGATTONALISM. 

which is the intellectual parallel to the strait and narrow 
way of life. 

The Independents of England in the Cromwellian period 
had no quarrel with the Presbyterians in respect to mat- 
ters of doctrine ; even as the English Presbyterians had 
no quarrel with the low-church Episcopalians of this 
period, so far as relates to points of faith. Owen heartily 
adopted the Westminster Confession, and Twisse and the 
whole Westminster Assembly would have been content 
with the doctrinal part of the 39 articles. The Calvinists 
of England within the Establishment, and the Calvinists 
of England without the Establishment, were both alike 
opposejd to Arminianism, and were equally earnest for 
those well discriminated creed-statements which mark off 
the faith of Geneva from that of Leyden. 

The English Independents differed from the English 
Presbyterians solely upon the subject of ecclesiastical 
polity. And when, therefore, they appointed their com- 
mittee at the Savoy in 1658 (exactly two hundred years 
ago) to draw up a confession of faith, that should organize 
the denomination, and hold it together, they instructed 
them to keep close to the Westminster upon doctrinal 
points, but to engraft the Congregational form of polity 
upon the old historical Calvinism that had come down to 
the Presbyterians themselves through Dort and Geneva.* 

These well-known and familiar facts are sufficient to 
show that the founders and fathers of English Congrega- 
tionalism were imbued with reverence for the ancient 
symbolism of the Protestant church, and felt that their 
small and feeble denomination, which was then struggling 
for existence amidst the convulsions of churches and 
states, must be held together, and made strong, by the 

♦ffeate, II., 178. Harper's Ed. 



SYMBOLS AND CONGREGATIONALISM. 325 

strength of God's truth stated unequivocally and exhaus- 
tively in a creed-form. 

The Congregational churches of New England were 
animated by the same feeling. Their leading minds, also, 
were of the same stamp, and theological affinities, with 
John Owen and John Howe. The pastor of the Plymouth 
pilgrims during their sojourn in Holland, the one who 
commended them to the protection of Cxod when they em- 
barked upon that hazardous voyage, and who told them 
that the Bible was not yet exhausted, and that " more 
light," he believed, was still to " break forth " from it, 
was John Robinson. But John Robinson believed in no 
light from the Bible that did not shine more and more 
upon the path of the Calvinist. John Robinson was a 
very vigilant observer of the most subtle and perplexing 
controversy in modern doctrinal history, that between 
Calvinism and Arminianism, and took a part in it. Brad- 
ford informs us that the pastor of the Pilgrims was " terri- 
ble to the Arminians," * and that too, it should be noticed, 

* " In these times, also, were the great troubles raised by the Armi- 
nians ; who, as they greatly molested the whole State, so this city in 
particular, in which was the chief university ; so as there were daily 
and hot disputes in the schools thereabouts. And as the students and 
other learned, were divided in their opinions herein, so were the two 
professors or divinity readers themselves, the one daily teaching for it, 
and the other against it ; which grew to that pass, that few of the 
disciples of the one would hear the other teach. But Mr. Robinson, 
although he taught thrice a week himself, and wrote sundry books, be- 
sides his manifold pains otherwise, yet he went constantly to hear their 
readings, and heard as well one as the other. By which means he was 
so well grounded in the controversy, and saw the force of all their argu- 
ments, and knew the shifts of the adversary ; and being himself very 
able, none was fitter to buckle with them than himself, as appeared by 
sundry disputes ; so as he began to be terrible to the Arminians ; which 
made Episcopius, the Arminian professor, to put forth his best strength, 
and set out sundry theses, which by public dispute he would defend 
against all men. Now Polyander, the other professor, and the chief 



326 SYMBOLS AND CONGREGATIONALISM. 

at a period in the history of Arminianism when the little 
finger of the progenitor was not so thick as the loins of 
some of the posterity. The controlling spirits among the 
clergy of the first New England colonies were also men 
of the same theological character and tendencies with the 
Owens and the Robinsons. The membership of the first 
New England churches had been born into the kingdom, 
through the instrumentality of a style of preaching and 
indoctrination, searching, systematic, and orthodox, in the 
highest degree. 

It was natural, therefore, that the Congregationalism of 
the New World should be marked by the same respect 
for the old historical faith which we have noticed in the 
English Independency. In 1648, ten years before the 
English Independents adopted their symbol at Savoy, the 
vigorous and vital churches scattered through the forests, 
and among the savages, of New England, sent their dele- 
gates to Cambridge, who drew up a confession of which 
the doctrinal part was adopted verbally from that of 
Westminster, while the polity of the symbol was made to 
conform to their own Congregational theory and usage. 
Thirty-two years after this, the churches of the province 
of Massachusetts met in synod, and drew up the only 
original symbol that has yet been constructed by an eccle- 
siastical body of Congregationalists. The Boston Confes- 

preachers of the city, desired Mr. Bobinson to dispute against him. But 
he was loth, being a stranger. Yet the other did importune him, and 
told him that such was the ability and nimbleness of wit of the adver- 
sary, that the truth would suffer if he did not help them ; so he con- 
descended, and prepared himself against the time. And when the time 
came, the Lord did so help him to defend the truth and foil his adver- 
sary, as he put him to an apparent nonplus in this great and public 
audience. And the like he did two or three times upon such like occa- 
sions." — Bradford's History of Plymouth Colony, Congregational Board's 
edition, pp. 256, 257. 



SYMBOLS AND CONGREGATIONALISM. 327 

sion of 1680, still retained as its creed by one of the oldest 
churches in the city of Boston,* though modelled very 
much after those of Westminster and Savoy, purports to 
be the work of a Congregational Synod, and in this regard 
has more claim to the respect of the descendants of the 
Pilgrims than any other symbol. Twenty-eight years 
after the formation of the Boston Confession, the churches 
in the Connecticut colony sent their representatives to 
Saybrook to construct a symbol for their use. This synod 
adopted the Boston Confession of 16S0, as an expression 
of doctrinal belief, and made a fuller statement of what 
they deemed to be the Congregational polity. 

This brief survey is sufficient to show that those who laid 
the foundations of Congregationalism, in the Old world 
and in the New, were in hearty sympathy with that body 
of doctrine which received its precise and technical state- 
ment in the creeds of the Reformation, and more particu- 
larly in that carefully discriminated system which was the 
result of the debate between Calvinism and Arminianism. 
The carefulness, and the frequency (three times within 
sixty years) with which symbols were drawn up and sent 
forth by the first Congregational churches evinces that 
both the individual theologian, and the denomination as a 
whole, craved a distinct, and publicly adopted, rule of 
faith and practice, as that which should help them to 
study the Scriptures understandingly, and should bind 
them together ecclesiastically. Reverence for a common 
denominational creed belongs, then, historically, to the Con- 
gregational church, as it does to all those well-compacted 
churches whose career constitutes the history of vital Chris- 
tianity upon earth. In seeking to deepen and strengthen 
this reverence, we are not going contrary to the primal in- 
stinct and native genius of Congregationalism ; we are not 
* The Old South. 



SYMBOLS AND CONGREGATIONALISM. 

engrafting any wild shoots into the church of our fore- 
fathers ; we are simply inhaling and exhaling their pure, 
their exact, their thorough-going spirit. 

1. Passing now to the discussion of the theme itself, we 
remark, in the first place, as a reason for a stronger sym- 
bolical feeling in Congregationalism, that an intensely 
free system, like our own, is the one that derives all the 
advantages, and escapes all the evils, that result from the 
organific power of a symbol. 

Were the church which we honor and love already rigid 
and solid by reason of an inherent tendency of its own to 
centralization, there might be reason to fear any and 
every consolidating influence. But Congregationalism is 
made up of dynamic forces and flowing lines, and its in- 
trinsic tendency is to liberty and diffusion. There is no 
church that has so little of form, and figure, and organi- 
zation, as our own. Like the church gathered in the 
upper room, its constitution is almost invisible. We are 
vastly nearer to pure spirit than to pure matter. Our 
body is nearly as immaterial as some souls. There is 
little danger, therefore, that Congregationalism w iH re - 
ceive detriment from a centripetal force, particularly if 
that force does not issue from polity, or judicatories, but 
from doctrine. And there is no danger that it will pro- 
ceed from either government or ecclesiastical mechanism. 
The political structure of our denomination is as well 
defined and settled as that of the Papacy itself, and stands 
even less chance of alteration. No centralizing force can 
be brought to bear from this quarter. The very attempt to 
establish judicatures within Congregational ism, and to unify 
and consolidate the denomination by means of polity, 
would be suicidal ; and, therefore, though there may be 
secessions and departures from it, there can be no internal 
change of the denomination as a whole, unless we suppose 



SYMBOLS AND CONGREGATIONALISM. 329 

an entire transmutation of it into something that is not 
Congregationalism. 

The only power, then, that can unify the denomination, 
and make its various atoms and elements feel that there is 
a deeper life and bond of union than that of polity, is the 
power of doctrine / the power of a common faith / the 
power of a self-chosen denominational creed. And this is 
both a salutary and safe power, in reference to a system 
so highly republican as our own. For in this exuberance 
of democratic life, and this expansive freedom, lies our 
danger. The centrifugal force, if unbalanced, will shoot 
the star madly from its sphere. Considering that our 
natural tendencies are those of growth, progress, and lib- 
erty, and that all natural tendencies perpetuate themselves, 
our watchfulness ought to have reference to such traits 
as unity, solidarity and harmony. That which is sponta- 
neous need give us no anxiety ; but that which is to be ac- 
quired, which is the result of effort and of self -education, 
should be the chief object in the eye. 

We may derive an illustration from the province of po- 
litical philosophy. The question whether conservatism or 
progress shall be the preponderating element in the state, 
will be answered by the wise man in view of the general 
condition of things in the commonwealth. He whose lot 
is cast among the hereditary prerogatives and orders of 
the English state, if he follows the wise course, will side 
with the Liberals ; while the very same man, if called to 
live and act in the midst of the fierce democracies and 
conflicts of a new and rankly growing nation like our 
own, will side with Conservatism. For there is little dan- 
ger, in the early and-, formative eras of a nation's history, 
particularly if there be an immense fund of vital force, 
and vast continental spaces to spread over and work in, 
of too much regulation and education. The training is 



330 SYMBOLS AND CONGREGATIONALISM. 

more liable to err upon the side of laxness than of strict- 
ness, when the thews and muscles of a giant are forming, 
and the gristle is hardening into the bone of a Hercules. 
Besides this, in a republican commonwealth, if the ten- 
dency to centralization does become too strong, and power 
really begins to steal from the many to the few, the rem- 
edy is close at hand, and in the hands of the citizens. In 
a monarchy, if the just equilibrium has been disturbed, it 
cannot be restored without a revolution ; but the adjust- 
ment in a republic takes place by an inevitable law and a 
tranquil movement, like that which equalizes the pressure 
of the atmosphere. In all free systems, therefore, where 
the instinct and the spontaneity runs to liberty and diffu- 
sion, the hazard is not in the direction of conservative 
methods and influences. 

All this holds true in its full force of the democratic 
church, as well as of the democratic state. As there is no 
lack of inward energy in Congregationalism, and as there 
is no external restraint from its political structure and ar- 
rangement; as there are no judicatures, and nothing, con- 
sequently, but good advice by which to hold the denomi- 
nation together ; there is little danger of an excess in the 
moral and spiritual forces that must do this work, if it be 
done at all. As that individual who stands up isolated, 
and independent of all outward restraints, ought for this 
very reason to feel the strongest possible inward limita- 
tion, so should that ecclesiastical body which has least of 
mechanism and of polity, subject itself to the strongest 
possible doctrinal and spiritual constraint. Let then the 
symbol be melted into the soul of the free and vigorous 
churches. Let it permeate them as quicksilver does the 
pores of gold. Let the clearly defined, and the accurate 
dogma become the sinew and fibre of the otherwise loose 
and slack organization. 



SYMBOLS AND CONGREGATIONALISM. 331 

2. Secondly, Congregationalism needs a stronger confi- 
dence in creed-statements because, as a denomination, it is 
unusually exposed to the sceptical influences of literary 
culture and free-thinking. 

It so happens that the simplest form of church polity 
is the dominant one, the " standing order," in the oldest 
and most highly educated portion of the United States. 
The Congregational churches of New England are planted 
in the midst of the most artificial civilization upon the 
Western continent, and their membership is more exposed 
to the good and bad influences of secular refinement and 
literary cultivation, than is that of any other denomination 
in the land. The first-settled, and most densely-settled, 
part of any country always contains more of irreconcil- 
able varieties of social, literary, and religious opinion than 
the newer regions. There may not be more apparent and 
superficial variety, but there will be vastly more of the 
latent and profounder differences of sentiment. There 
are, it is true, a much greater number of sects in our 
Western states than in the Eastern, but then these sects 
themselves are founded in religion of some sort, and not 
in scepticism. The pioneer, though illiterate and rude, 
it may be, is characterized by religious sensibility, and he 
is continually thrown into circumstances and emergencies 
that cause him to feel his dependence upon his Maker. 
As a consequence, he is, like the ancient Athenians to 
whom Paul spoke, very much inclined to religion and 
worship. The older parts of our land, on the other hand, 
may exhibit fewer external marks of difference ; fewer 
sects may come into existence, and to the eye of the super- 
ficial observer, there may seem to be a very general same- 
ness in the external phenomena of the region, and yet 
there be forming, and formed, beneath, in the hearts and 
minds of a class of community, a disbelief in all that is 



332 SYMBOLS AND CONGREGATIONALISM. 

properly called religion that throws them " whole equi- 
noxes apart" from those who are living, thinking, praying; 
and dying by their side. This radical divergence of the 
parties from each other is seen whenever any great reli- 
gious movement takes place. The motley and mottled 
population of the new region, being only superficially 
separated, flows together when the common Christian 
faith and truth is set home with unwonted power and by 
unwonted influences, while the seemingly homogeneous 
population of the educated and refined portions of the 
country only have their latent and irreconcilable antago- 
nisms elicited by such influences. Hence it is that the 
extremes of faith and unbelief will always meet, in their 
severest conflict, in the older and more highly cultivated 
portions of a country. And that church which is called 
to defend and propagate the faith amongst such a popu- 
lation, is consequently exposed to unusual temptations, 
and needs uncommon aids and appliances. 

Such, if we are not mistaken, is the position and the 
function of Congregationalism. The most careless ob- 
server must acknowledge that there is more of radioed 
conflict of opinion in New England than in any other 
portion of the United States. That scepticism which in- 
variably springs up out of belles lettres when belles let- 
tres is divorced from deep thinking, is more rife and 
forth-putting here than anywhere else. These older 
states contain more of that religious indifr'erentisin which 
always arises when literature is separated from philosophy 
and theology, and which exhibits its opposition to New- 
Testament Christianity, sometimes by the elegant languor 
of its over-refinement, and sometimes, when exasperated 
into some emotion, by a bitterness that borders upon ma- 
lignity. The Congregational churches are set for the de- 
fence and spread of the humbling doctrines of guilt and 



SYMBOLS AND CONGREGATIONALISM. 333 

atonement, among a population which is feeling in an in- 
creasing degree the stupefying influences of wealth, and 
the inflating influences of earthly culture. The structure 
of society around them, like that of England or France, is 
growing artificial, and, in so far, irreligious, by the very 
lapse of time, and the influx of a more elaborate civiliza- 
tion. Loose thinking, and radical differences of opinion 
upon fundamental subjects, are the natural attendants 
upon such a social state and condition, and it becomes 
much more difficult for Christianity under such circum- 
stances to overcome the antagonisms and mould society 
internally and from the centre. The newer states, and 
the less sophisticated populations, are much more plastic, 
and, in all their internal characteristics, much more homo- 
geneous, and hence the church that is planted in them 
only needs to enunciate certain leading truths with bold- 
ness and fluent eloquence, to create currents that will roll 
like the Mississippi itself through the whole length of the 
land. But it is different in the older and over-civilized 
portions of the country. The statements of the pulpit, 
here, must not only be bold, but exact, and drawn from 
the deep places. The preacher must be an anatomist, 
and not merely a painter. He cannot break up moral in- 
difference, or vanquish religious scepticism, in the well- 
bred and well-read hearer before him, by a merely pic- 
torial method. He must prove himself to be a psycholo- 
gist, and by an analysis of character, by a subtle penetra- 
tion into the springs of motive and feeling, elicit some re- 
ligious consciousness in his careless and unbelieving audi- 
tor, and probe it until he writhes. Christianity, among 
old institutions, and matured methods of mental disci- 
pline, must verify itself as the commanding truth, by the 
energy of its abstraction, the clearness of its discrimina- 
tion, the penetrating force of its elements, the comprehen* 



334 SYMBOLS AND CONGREGATIONALISM. 

siveness of its grasp, and the patient thoroughness of its 
details. 

But all this necessitates the symbol. This conflict of 
opinion in cultivated Christendom can be stilled only by 
that church which looks down upon it from the higher 
position furnished by historical Christianity. That denom- 
ination which thinks to dispense with the results of past 
theologizing, and which supposes that, of and by itself, it 
can solve all the problems that press upon the natural 
mind, and refute all the arguments advanced by the carnal 
reason, will find that it has over-estimated its strength. It 
will be forced to fall back into the solid columns that are 
behind it, and to fight the battle in company with the 
whole church militant. For the creeds have themselves 
been born of intellectual conflict; of a deeper conflict 
thau is ever witnessed by any single church, or any single 
generation, because they are the slow growth of many 
churches and many generations. The historical symbol 
contains the key to those very problems which are 
troubling every new generation of unbelievers, because 
they are vainly thinking that the individual is wiser than 
the Christian church, and wiser than the human race. 
That church, consequently, which, calmly and with intel- 
ligent foresight, has adopted it, and wrought it into its 
understanding and its affections, will be able to still the 
conflict that is going on, either by lifting the doubting or 
opposing mind up to its own serene height of vision, or by 
an argumentation that leaves the truth triumphant and 
firm, whatever becomes of the opponent. 

3, In the third place, a stronger symbolical feeling is re- 
quired in Congregationalism, because of the laxness with 
which the Bible itself is now interpreted by many minds 
in the Protestant world. 

In the preceding division of the discourse we have 






SYMBOLS AND CONGBEGATIONALISM. 335 

spoken of the dangers that assail ns from that scepticism 
which rejects the Bible altogether ; we have now to speak 
of those latitudinarian influences which issue, not from 
a rejection of Revelation, but from an inadequate and de- 
fective understanding of it. When the Scriptures have 
become venerable and sacred in an old Christian common- 
wealth, and yet there is a declining interest in their car- 
dinal doctrines, nothing is more natural than an exegesis 
that empties them of these doctrines. " The Bible is the 
religion of Protestants " is a dictum accepted at the pres- 
ent day by Protestant parties that stand poles apart in 
their interpretation of the Bible, and their theological 
belief. This dictum meant something when the church 
was just escaping from the crushing authority of tradition 
and of the Papacy. It taught that the human mind must 
seek for an infallible rule of faith, and source of truth, 
in the word of God, and not in the church. But the 
Reform ers held, and with very great earnestness too, that 
the Bible teaches but one set of doctrines, and contains 
but one homogeneous system. They were themselves 
strict constructionists and exegetes, and every line and let- 
ter of their creeds evinces that they could discover within 
its pages only that same doctrinal system which the Patris- 
tic church,* as distinguished from the Papal, had found 
in them. The Reformers had no notion that the Bible is 
a nose of wax. It could not be made to teach two or 
more systems radically contradictory to each other. When, 
therefore, they called the church back to Divine Revela- 
tion, as the only unerring source of truth, they did not 

* And the Western, rather than the Eastern, Patristic church, it 
should always be observed. Luther and Calvin fortified themselves, in 
their contest with the Papal theologian, who asserted that the Protest- 
ants were leaving the faith of the " Fathers," by citing the stricter 
views held by the Latin, rather than the milder tenets adopted by the 
Greek, divines. 



336 SYMBOLS AND CONGREGATIONALISM. 

suppose that they were sending it to a Delphic oracle, 
uttering ambiguous voices, like those of Paganism. And 
neither did the first Protestants themselves find two antag- 
onistic lines of doctrine in these Scriptures. From Gene- 
sis to the Apocalypse, the modern Protestant church, as 
had the ancient Patristic before them, discovered but one 
generic and homogeneous teaching respecting the being 
and attributes of God, the actual character and destiny of 
man, and the method of his redemption by a Mediator. 
And they embodied the results of their profound and sys- 
tematic study of the Bible, in that remarkable series of 
symbols, which more than anything else of a human sort 
consolidated Protestantism, and gave it a firm fibre and 
organization, whereby it stood strong amidst all the dis- 
tractions of the time. Had there been radical differences 
among the Reformers in their understanding of the Scrip- 
tures ; had Luther and Calvin been unable to see eye to eye 
upon the leading truths relating to God, Man, and the God- 
Man, and had they constructed creeds for the German, 
Swiss, and Holland churches, that were antagonistic to 
each other upon these subjects ; had there not been in this 
remarkable age the most profound and exhaustive study 
of the word of God, and as a consequence, a most har- 
monious understanding of its contents, Protestantism 
would have been broken down, and crushed into the earth, 
by the massive, time-honored, though merely mechanical 
unity of the Papacy. 

But in process of time, the term Protestant acquires 
the same vague and loose meaning which the term Chris- 
tian has received. When the disciples of Christ were first 
called by this name at Antioch, it denoted only those who 
had come to a personal sense of sin, and a living 
faith in the Redeemer. It now, besides this, designates 
all of the human family who are not Pagans or Moham* 



SYMBOLS AND CONGREGATIONALISM. 337 

medans. In like manner the term Protestant, in the 
beginning, had exclusive reference to religious and doc- 
trinal characteristics, while now, it has certainly an equal 
reference to intellectual traits. Protestantism, at first, 
meant justification by faith, in distinction from justifica- 
tion by works. It now means, over and besides this, free- 
thinking and private judgment, in distinction from hered- 
itary trust and unreasoning assent.* As a consequence, 
the intellectual characteristics of Protestantism are apt to 
overcome and suppress its evangelical and theological 
ones, in those periods when civilization and literary cul- 
ture become separated from doctrinal Christianity. As 
matter of fact, the Protestantism of the present day 
includes within itself an amount of rationalistic and anti- 
evangelical elements, at which the Reformers, the original 
Protestants, would have stood aghast. 

But this condition of things directly affects the inter- 
pretation of the Scriptures. All Protestants, of whatever 
grade, must accept the dictum that distinguishes Protes- 
tantism from Popery ; otherwise they fall into the ranks 
of the Pope. Chilling worth's saying : " The Bible is the 
religion of Protestants," becomes the watchword for 
Socinus, equally with Calvin, and for all the intermedi- 
ates between these two representative men. In order, 
therefore, to an unambiguous and well-accented denomi- 
national character, every Protestant denomination requires 
a symbol that shall express, and proclaim to the world, 
what it finds in the word of God. In the present condi- 
tion of Protestantism, and amidst the variety of interpre- 

* This is the preponderating conception of Protestantism, in Mr. 
Hallam's representation of the Reformers and of the Reformation. A 
deeper acquaintance with the theological problems and aspects of those 
men and times would have preserved the history of the Literature of 
Europe from the only grave bias that now injures it. 
15 



338 SYMBOLS AND CONGKEGATIONALISM. 

tations that are put upon the Scriptures, it is not sufficient 
for an individual, or a church, to say : "My religion is in 
the Bible." Well do we remember the humor with which 
a venerable theological teacher was wont to allude to the 
zeal of a well-meaning man, who proposed to unite into 
one body all thte various denominations that checker and 
speckle our land, by issuing an edition of the Scriptures 
with a sufficiency of blank leaves, and inviting all persons 
to fall to, and subscribe the Bible ! It is not enough, in 
the present condition of Christendom, for an individual to 
point at the word of God, as it lies upon the table, saying : 
" My doctrinal belief is between those covers." As we 
cannot determine, in these days of naturalism and panthe- 
ism, what lessons the scientific man learns from the book 
of Nature, until he has stated them in the exact nomencla- 
ture and precise phraseology of science, so neither can we 
decide what teachings the Protestant now finds in the 
book of Revelation until he has written out his creed. 

" The subscription to Scripture," said Edmund Burke, 
"is the most astonishing idea I ever heard, and will amount 
to just nothing at all. Gentlemen so acute have not, that 
I have heard, ever thought of answering- a plain obvious 
question : What is that Scripture, to which they are con- 
tent to subscribe ? They do not think that a book becomes 
of divine authority because it is bound in blue morocco 
and is printed by John Basket and his assigns. The Bible 
is a vast collection of different treatises : a man who holds 
the divine authority of one may consider the other as 
merely human. What is his canon? The Jewish — St. 
Jerome's — that of the Thirty-Nine Articles — Luther's? 
Therefore to ascertain Scripture you must have one article 
more ; you must define what that Scripture is which you 
mean to teach. There are, I believe, very few who, when 
Scripture is so ascertained, do not see the absolute neces- 



SYMBOLS AND CONGREGATIONALISM. 339 

ity of knowing what general doctrine a man draws from 
it, before he is sent down, authorized by the State, to teach 
it as pure doctrine, and receive a tenth of the produce of 
our lands. The Scripture is no one summary of doctrines 
regularly digested, in which a man could not mistake his 
way. It is a most venerable, but most multifarious collec- 
tion of the records of the divine economy ; a collection of 
an infinite variety of cosmogony, theology, history, proph- 
ecy, psalmody, morality, epilogue, allegory, legislation, 
ethics, carried through different books, by different au- 
thors, at different ages, for different ends- and purposes. 
It is necessary to sort out what is intended for example, 
what only as narrative, what to be understood literally, 
what figuratively, where one precept is to be controlled 
and modified by another, what, is used directly and what 
only as an argument ad hominem, what is temporary and 
what of perpetual obligation, what is appropriated to one 
state and to one set of men, and what the general duty of 
all Christians. If we do not get some security for this, 
we not only permit, but we actually pay for, all the danger- 
ous fanaticism which can be produced to corrupt our peo- 
ple, and to derange the public worship of the country. We 
owe the best we can (not infallibility, but prudence) to the 
subject : first sound doctrine, then ability to use it." * 
In order, therefore, that the Congregational churches 

* Speech on the Acts of Uniformity. — It may be said, that the Con- 
gregational churches do write out their creed, each one for itself, and 
therefore do not need a denominational symbol. But upon this method, 
they are less assisted by a common and self- authorized interpretation of 
the Scriptures, than most other denominations ; and less than their 
ancestors were a century and a half ago, if we are to judge from the 
denominational action at Cambridge, Boston, and Saybrook. Have we 
not applied our theory respecting church-discipline, to church-doctrine, 
somewhat to our own disadvantage, from overlooking the difference 
between the two things ? It is our belief, as it was that of our fore- 
fathers, that it is expedient that government and discipline should be 



34:0 SYMBOLS AND CONGREGATIONALISM. 

may escape the evils incident to the great Protestant right 
of private judgment, and the freedom of speculation which 
always goes along with it, and may derive only the advan- 
tages flowing from it, they need, as a denomination, to 
state their own judgment, in the most exact and distinct 
manner, with respect to the meaning and doctrinal con- 
tents of the Bible. For in this way alone can they pre- 
vent the private judgment of other Protestant parties and 
denominations from being imposed upon them for their 
own. As this is a point of some importance, we will 
dwell upon it for a moment. There is little danger that 
a denomination like our own should be much affected, in 

confined as strictly as possible to the local church, and that as little as 
possible even of advice should be called in through councils, associa- 
tions, or the denomination as a whole. And it also seems to be our be- 
lief, as it was not that of our forefathers (judging from their denomina- 
tional action), that it is equally expedient that the doctrinal creed 
should be drawn up by every local church for itself, and that a common 
concert and cooperation of the churches of the denomination, in this 
respect, is as undesirable as with respect to cases of church discipline. 
But are we not mistaken in this, from not observing the great difference 
there is between doctrine and discipline ? While it is well that all those 
secondary affairs which pertain to church government should be guided 
as much as possible by each individual church for itself, and there 
should be all the variety of adjustment incident to the great number 
and variety of such affairs, is it as well that the primary matter of doc- 
trinal statement, which from the nature of the case is a fixed quantity, 
should be exposed to all the liability to variation and divergence from 
the exact truth that necessarily attaches to individual and local action 
repeated every time that a church is formed ? This work, unlike the 
other, does not require to be performed anew every day, and continu- 
ally. Truth is unchangeable. The creed for the denomination ought, 
therefore, to be the work of the denomination, and be constructed once 
for all. But church discipline is required anew and afresh every day, 
because it grows out of the ever-changing circumstances of the day. It 
may, therefore, be administered by the day — that is, whenever the 
occasion arises, and by the local body, because the local body is con- 
cerned in the speciality of the case. 



SYMBOLS AND CONGREGATIONALISM. 341 

the outset, by those forms of Protestantism which reject 
the essential doctrines of Christianity. The difference 
between Rationalism and Supernaturalism is too great for 
influences to pass directly from one to the other. The 
chasm between these parties is so wide that they cannot 
hear each other's voices across it. The latitudinarian in- 
fluences (latitudinarian as we must regard them from our 
denominational position) will first come in upon us from 
those evangelical divisions in Protestantism who hold the 
doctrines of grace, but who, according to our denomina- 
tional judgment, do not hold them with sufficient self-con- 
sistence and comprehensiveness, to render their creed, and 
their theologizing, as accurate as our own. The nice 
point, and therefore the point of most danger, for Congre- 
gationalism, and for all other denominations that occupy the 
same doctrinal position with it, is the right adjustment of 
its relations, not to downright heresy, but to a looser and 
less defined form of orthodoxy than Congregationalism 
thinks itself can stand upon. We may illustrate our 
meaning by reference to the great controversy which has 
gone on from the very first ages to the present time, be- 
tween the two grand divisions of evangelical Christendom. 
"We refer to that standing difference of opinion among 
believers in the general doctrines of grace, which, in the 
Patristic church, showed itself in the Augustinian and 
Semi-Pelagian divisions, and, in the Protestant church, 
in the Calvinistic and Arminian controversies. In these 
two great divisions of ancient and modern evangelical 
Christendom, we find a difference of sentiment, not with 
regard to the general facts and truths of New Testament 
Christianity, but with respect to the more specific and 
exact definitions of them.* And it is with reference to 

* ' ■ That man is no longer in his pure and primitive moral condition, 
and that the mere cultivation of his present natural powers and sus 



342 SYMBOLS AND CONGREGATIONALISM. 

this specific enunciation of the general doctrines of grace 
that the principal controversy has gone on, and is still 
going on, within the evangelical world. For it is a great 
mistake to suppose that the Patristic church was very 
much convulsed by the controversy with mere and sheer 
Pelagianism ; or that the Protestant church has been very 
much excited or tasked by mere and sheer Socinianism. 
Both of these schemes are so totally different from the 
plain teachings of the entire and unmutilated Scripture 
that there was no opportunity for a profound argument, 
and a permanent debate ; and hence both of these schemes 
alike dropped back into their own private and local cir- 
cles, while the great mass of the Patristic, as of the Prot- 
estant church, retained, and defended the evangelical the- 
ology. But upon this basis of general evangelism, there 
was an opportunity for an argument, and an honest differ- 
ence of sentiment, among true believers in Christ. The 
ancient Semi-Pelagian, like the modern Arminian, while 
confessing his sin, and trusting in the blood of Christ, 
could sincerely urge what he believed to be a strong argu- 
ment against the doctrines of predestination and irresisti- 

ceptibilities cannot possibly suffice for the attainment of the true end of 
his creation ; that, on the contrary, his original divinely-created nature 
has become corrupted and ruined by the dominion within him of the 
principle of self-will, and that in order to live conformably with his own 
original constitution, and to practice holiness from a holy disposition, 
he needs an inward change through a divine power — all this, in a gene- 
ral form of statement, had been the doctrine of the church from the 
first. It was only when still more strict definitions and statements were 
attempted — and particularly when such questions as these arose : Is 
there in the fallen soul any power of self -restoration ? if so, to what 
degree ? and what is its relation to the renewing power of the Holy 
Spirit ? — that the church of the first four centuries found itself not fully 
agreed. There was constantly a difference, in this respect, between the 
Oriental and Occidental churches, and to some extent also within the 
Occidental church itself." — Guericke's Church History, § 91. 



SYMBOLS AND CONGREGATIONALISM. 343 

ble giace,* and that particular statement of the doctrine 
of original sin out of which the doctrines of predestina- 
tion and irresistible grace issue as necessary corollaries. 
And his opponent showed his respect for that belief, by 
entering into the debate, and defending what he believed 
to be the more exact, and self-consistent, and all-compre- 
hending statement of that same evangelical system. Not 
with reference, then, to the tenets of Pelagius and So- 
cinus, but to those of Chrysostom and Arminius, as distin- 
guished from those of Augustine and Calvin, do the Con- 
gregational churches need a strong symbolical feeling that 
will identify them yet more thoroughly with the stricter 
of those two great systems of theology, whose fraternal 
(and may it ever be fraternal) conflict and debate consti- 
tutes the sum and substance of evangelical doctrinal his- 
tory. 

For Congregationalism, it is agreed upon all sides, does 
not adopt the Arminian system as its doctrinal basis. The 
early history of the denomination has shown that the 
fathers and founders were strictly Calvinistic, in reference 
to the points at issue between Geneva and Ley den. Says 
the respected secretary of this Library Association, at the 
close of a most instructive historical sketch of the Congre- 
gational churches in Massachusetts : " Calvinism as a system 
of religious faith, and Puritanism as a code of morals (the 
two toughest things that ever entered into the composition 
of human character), were the original soul and body of 
these Congregational churches." And this Calvinism, he 
adds, was " that unadulterated Calvinism which had been 
filtered of every Arminian particle by the Synod of Dort, 

* "Irresistible," it is needless to remark, not in the sense of never 
being resisted by the enmity of the carnal mind (Rom. 8:7), but in 
the sense of being- able to overcome, and actually overcoming, the ut^ 
most energy and intensity of that resistance. 



344 SYMBOLS AND CONGREGATIONALISM. 

whose ablest defender was John Robinson." * And no 
one can follow the tremendous cogency of that logic by 
which the great head of New England theology crushes 
to its minutest fibre the Arminian theory of indetermina- 
tion, and the Arminian statement of the doctrine of Orig- 
inal Sin, without perceiving that there was a most pro- 
found harmony and agreement between the mind at 
Northampton, and the minds at Dort and Westminster. 
The successors of Edwards, New England divines of all 
varieties, alike repel the charge of Arminianizing pro- 
clivities ; and, though there may be a difference of opinion 
respecting the success with which the several schools that 
have arisen among us have untied the knots, and unravelled 
the intricacies of the Calvinistic system, there can be no 
doubt that all of our leading thinkers have intended, and 
done their utmost, to be true to the historical faith of their 
denomination. 

The influence of the symbol is required to strengthen 
and perpetuate in Congregationalism this same primitive 
energy and decision in favor of the stricter of the two 
systems of evangelical theology. For the creed-statement 
evinces that there is no logical middle position between 
Calvinism and Arminianism, and that the choice of an 
individual or a denomination, consequently, lies between 
the one or the other. Semi-Pelagianism was a real mid- 
point between the tenets of Augustine and those of Pela- 
gius ; but there is no true intermediate between the sys- 
tem of Arminius and that of Calvin. In the history of 
doctrine there are sometimes semiquavers, but demi-semi- 
quavers never. In marking off the true scientific differ- 
ence in this way, in making up the exact issue, between 

* Congregationalist, Feb. 12, 1858. These valuable sketches have 
recently been collected, and published with additions, by the Congrega- 
tional Board of Publication. 



SYMBOLS AND CONGREGATIONALISM. 345 

the two great theological systems of Christendom that are 
kindred but not equivalents, the historical creed is an 
educating force of the highest value to a denomination. 
It imparts frankness and clearness to all minds within it, 
and frankness and clearness are twin sisters to generosity 
and catholicity. 

4. Fourthly, a stronger symbolical feeling, operating in 
Congregationalism, would tend to harmonize its own theo- 
logians among themselves. 

It is the tendency of our highly republican system to 
call out vigorous and independent thinking. As a conse- 
quence, our denomination more than others, has from the 
beginning been stimulated, and sometimes startled, by the 
uprising of those salient minds who become the nuclei of 
parties, and the heads of schools. Minor and somewhat 
local systems, each in its own time and place, have thus 
radiated their influence through the denomination, have 
come more or less into collision with each other, and have 
thereby imparted to Congregationalism that varied and 
somewhat parti-colored aspect which it wears when com- 
pared with ecclesiastical bodies in which there is less 
boldness of speculation. This is the genius of Congrega- 
tionalism, and we would not transform it if we could. 
This desire to evince the reasonableness of Christianity, 
this inquisitive and enterprising temper, this scholasticism 
of the nineteenth century, is the vitality by which theo- 
logical science in every age has been built up. But vital 
force must always have materials to work upon, and ideas 
to work by. And these we would find, for the theologian, 
in the denominational symbol. For it is not enough to 
refer him to the Bible without note or comment. Were 
he a convicted sinner only, and were it his object to seek 
his own personal salvation, this direction would be suffi- 
cient. But he is a theologian, and as such it is his pur- 
15* 



346 SYMBOLS AND CONGREGATIONALISM. 

pose to construct a great comprehensive system that shall 
do justice to the entire word of God — that shall not omit 
a single truth, and shall place every doctrine in its right 
relations and proportions — and therefore he, in the capa- 
city, and exercising the function of a theologian, must be 
assisted in this collection and combination of the contents 
of Revelation by the labor of all his predecessors. To shut 
up a single individual with the mere text of the Scriptures, 
and demand that, by his own unassisted studies and medi- 
tations upon it, he should during his own life-time build 
up a statement of the doctrine of the Trinity like that of 
Nice, of the doctrine of the Person of Christ like that of 
Chalcedon, of the doctrine of the Atonement like that of 
the Augsburg and Helvetic Confessions, of the doctrines 
of Sin and Predestination like that of Dort and West- 
minster, would be to require an impossibility. It would 
be like demanding that a theologian of the year 150 
should construct, in his single day and generation, the 
entire systematic theology of the year 1850 ; that a Justin 
Martyr, e. g., should anticipate and perform the entire 
thinking of a thousand minds and of seventeen hundred 
years ! And yet the substance and staple of all this vast 
and comprehensive system of divinity was in that Bible 
which Justin Martyr possessed without note or comment. 

The theorizing spirit of the individual divine needs, 
therefore, to be both aided and guided by symbols. In 
proportion as individual thinkers can bear in mind that 
the church which they honor and love has already earned 
a definite theological character, and has given expression 
to its theological preferences in its own self-chosen creed, 
they will come under a unifying influence. Their differ- 
ences and idiosyncrasies, instead of being exaggerated by 
themselves or their adherents, will be modified, and har- 
monized, by the central system under which all stand, and 






SYMBOLS AND CONGKEGATIONAIISM. 34:7 

to which the whole body has given assent. There will be 
no loss of mental vigor upon this method, nor of true 
mental originality, any more than there is when the mathe- 
matician's genius is guided and stimulated by the axioms 
and theorems of a science that was wrought out before he 
was born. He does not copy, but he reproduces, the 
mathematical processes of the past, within his own intel- 
lect, and in and by this reproduction is conducted to fresh 
and original products that are also in the true scientific 
line. In what other way will the active and ingenious 
minds of a denomination be likely to see eye to eye, and 
the sum-total of their speculations constitute a homogene- 
ous theology, except as they revere the symbolism of their 
ancestors? It is when differing, and perhaps diverging, 
minds are called upon to defend the peculiarities of a 
common denominational faith, that their differences are 
dissolved. So long as it is an open question what the 
common faith is, and the thinkers of a denomination are 
at leisure to cultivate their peculiarities, so long there 
must be collision and debate. But the very instant it 
appears that there is a recognized denominational creed, 
and it becomes necessary to maintain this creed as vital to 
the very existence and growth of the denomination, all 
sincere members of it rally to the defence ; and the ten- 
dency of defences, as the whole history of Apologies 
proves, is to harmonize and unite.* 

5. Fifthly, and finally, Congregationalism needs a 

* When the doctrine of vicarious satisfaction was attacked by Duns 
Scotus, Thomas Aquinas rushed to its defence, and in so doing- substan- 
tially retracted positions which he himself had previously taken ; be- 
cause he now saw, as he did not before, that it was impossible to defend 
the faith of the church if he retained them. And the whole history of 
Calvinism proves that it has been enunciated with most unanimity, and 
defended with greatest power, when the Calvinistic divines were hard 
est pressed by their Arminian opponents. 



348 SYMBOLS AND CONGKEGATIONALISM. 

stronger symbolical feeling, in order to success in its 
present endeavor to extend its denominational limits. 

The two forms of evangelical Christianity which are to 
spread over the United States are the Calvinistic and the 
Arminian. The history of the church upon this Western 
continent will be substantially the same with its history in 
the Eastern. One portion of American Christendom will 
demand the more exact and self -consistent statement of 
Biblical doctrine, while the other portion will be content 
with that less precise and comprehensive enunciation of it 
which emphasizes, indeed, with evangelical energy, the 
doctrine of forgiveness through the blood of Christ, but 
rejects the predestination and irresistible grace that secures 
the vital acceptance of the Gospel provision. Through- 
out the land, there will be those, on the one hand, who, 
in the phrase of Edward Irving, " will rest content with 
the infant state of Christ, and see no more in the rich 
treasures of God's word than a free gift to all men, shrink- 
ing back with a feeling of dismay from such parts of the 
sacred volume as favor a system of doctrine suited to the 
manly state of Christian life ; " and those on the other, 
who " will not be content evermore to dwell in the outer 
court of the holy temple, but who resolve for their soul's 
better peace and higher joy to enter into the holy and 
most holy place, which is no longer veiled and forbidden, 
and find a full declaration of the deepest secrets of their 
faith, expression for their inmost knowledge of the truth, 
and forms for their most profound feeling, upon the pecu- 
liar, and appropriate, and never-failing love of a covenant 
God towards his own peculiar people." * The American 
church, like the old Patristic, like the modern European, 
will crave, according to the grade of its Christian culture, 

* Irving's Preface to Home on the Psalms. 



SYMBOLS AND CONGREGATIONALISM. 349 

either the milk that is for babes, or the meat that is for 
strong men. 

Congregationalism now proposes to go from East to 
West, from North to South, upon its mission of love. 
Outside of its old ancestral home, it is not yet strong. 
It enters into a friendly rivalry with other branches of 
Christ's church, upon fields which they have preoccupied, 
and upon which it has yet to get a firm foothold. Shall 
it give up or modify, its old historical character, and 
adopt the laxer of the two great systems of evangelical 
doctrine, and seek to build up churches upon the 
same doctrinal basis with the pioneering, the fervid, 
the beloved * Methodist ? If it does, it will fail ; first, 
because it will not be true to its own genius and ante- 
cedents, and second, because the wonderfully effective and 
persistent " method " of Methodism will absorb all its ac- 
quisitions, upon this basis, into itself. 

It only remains, therefore, for Congregationalism to 
carry into the new regions which it proposes to enter, the 
very same doctrine, and the very same creed, which it 
brought over from England and Holland. The denomi- 
nations with which it has most affinity, and with which it 
will come into nearest contact, are themselves built 
upon the Calvinistic foundation. The several Presbyter- 
ian bodies have become strong and consolidated in those 
regions by their persevering attachment to their historical 
symbols. If they are true to Christ and the New Testa- 
ment, they will welcome, and not repel, all who stand up- 
on the same doctrinal platform with themselves. The 
merely secondary matter of polity will never, in the long 
run, alienate denominations who are one in doctrine, and 

* We use this word advisedly. We feel a deep and warm affection 
towards that large denomination which goes everywhere preaching the 
doctrine of man's guilt, and his forgiveness through atoning blood. 



350 SYMBOLS AND CONGREGATIONALISM. 

in the experimental consciousness that grows out of doc- 
trine. Standing firm upon the creed of Owen and Robin- 
son, and equally firm upon the polity of Owen and Robin- 
son, who can doubt that an advancing career is in reserve 
for the Congregational churches % Thorough orthodoxy 
(which means thorough accuracy) in the technical state- 
ment, in friendly alliance with the utmost freedom and 
simplicity in the political structure — the longest and firm- 
est of roots bursting out into the brightest and most deli- 
cate of flowers — this will be a phase of Christianity that 
must attract and influence. It lies within the province of 
Congregationalism to originate and exemplify a style of 
Christianity that will be somewhat unique in the history 
of the church. Exactitude of doctrine has sometimes 
been associated, in ecclesiastical history, with rigid and 
stately forms of polity. The muscle has been enveloped 
in tissues as tough and fibrous as itself. It is now com- 
petent for the most republican of the polities to clothe 
the bone and sinew in the warm and flexile flesh ; to ex- 
hibit the most profound and scientific type of truth in the 
most simple form of church government, and the most 
ethereal style of church life. In so doing, Congregation- 
alism will find a welcome from all the true friends of 
Christ, the world over. And particularly will it be wel- 
comed by that large portion of evangelical Christendom 
to whom the theology of Augustine and Calvin is precious 
as the apple of the eye. There can be no collision and 
no hostile rivalry between denominations that see eye to 
eye in respect to an exact and a living orthodoxy. How 
was it in the days when the Reformers on the Continent 
fraternized with the Reformers in the British Islands ? 
There was much more difference between the Presbyter- 
ianism of Geneva and the Episcopacy of London, than 
there is between the Presbyterianism of the Middle and 



SYMBOLS AND CONGREGATIONALISM. 351 

Southern States, and the Congregationalism of New Eng- 
land. Yet how respectful was the feeling of Richard 
Hooker, the great defender of prelacy, towards John Cal- 
vin. Read the Zurich Letters, and see how deep was thr 
interest which the English prelates took in the prosperity 
of the Swiss pastors. And yet there was no sacrifice of 
principle, or of conviction, upon either side, even in re- 
gard to polity. Bishops Grindal and Jewell will not be 
called lax Episcopalians. John Calvin and Henry Bullin- 
ger will not be regarded as indifferent Presbyterians. 
Each stood firm upon his own ecclesiastical position, and 
each labored, in every legitimate manner, for the upbuild- 
ing of the particular branch of Christ's church with which 
birth, and education, and personal conviction had con- 
nected him. Bat both knew that there is a higher, a 
more august thing than the external regimen of the visi- 
ble church. Both felt the mutual respect, and mutual 
fellowship, which springs out of a common reception of a 
common type of doctrine. 

And so will it be upon the wider arena of denomina- 
tional life and action. By identifying itself, always and 
everywhere, with that theological system whose most fit- 
ing material symbol is Plymouth rock, while yet it main- 
tains, always and everywhere, that simple and spiritual- 
izing form of polity which is in such perfect keeping with 
the doctrine which it enshrines ; by uniting the firmness 
and solidity of the oecumenical symbol with the freedom 
and flexibility of the local church, Congregationalism will 
receive the " God speed " of the Church universal. Go 
where it may, upon this continent or upon other conti- 
nents, it will hear from the lips of the worn and weary 
penitent, the warm words of the hymn : 

" Brethren ! where your altr»r burns, 
Oh ! receive me into rest." 



352 SYMBOLS AND CONGREGATIONALISM. 

We have thus, Brethren and Fathers, considered some 
of the reasons for the cultivation, among ourselves, of a 
stronger symbolical feeling, and a bolder confidence in 
creed-statements. In so doing, we are well aware that we 
tread upon difficult ground. In the minds of some, the 
symbol has come to be associated with rigid, and more or 
less monarchical forms of church polity. The adoption 
of an exact denominational creed seems to carry with it 
the renunciation of Congregational freedom, and to pave 
the way for judicatures, and a central government in the 
church. 

But there is no necessary connection between strict 
doctrine and high-church polity. Each subject stands, or 
falls, upon its own merits. No one will deny that John 
Owen was as thorough a Calvinist as ever drew breath ; 
and that he was as thorough a Congregationalist is equally 
certain. What hinders any denomination from being in- 
spired with the very spirit of Dort and Westminster, so 
far as doctrine is concerned, while yet it cleaves to the 
most democratic republicanism in polity ? 

For this matter of doctrine is an inward conviction, a 
voluntary adoption, if it is anything at all. The denomi- 
national symbol is not to be forced upon a denomination. 
It cannot be. It must be the free act, the self-chosen 
creed, of the churches. Hence we have spoken of a sym- 
bolical feeling, a denominational confidence and respect 
towards creeds, rather than of any particular measure, or 
method, by which a symbol might be cunningly insinuated 
into a church, or sprung upon it as a surprise. That 
which is inward and spiritual must first exist, in order to 
that which is outward and formal. While, therefore, we 
would not, if we could, impose and inflict a creed upon 
any unwilling church, we confess that we would, if we 
could, inspire every church upon the glote with an in- 



SYMBOLS AND CONGREGATIONALISM. 353 

telligent and cordial affection for that " form of sound 
words," around which the sublimest recollections of the 
church militant have clustered, and put of which its 
purest and best religious experience has sprung. 

To deepen a feeling which already exists in Congrega- 
tionalism ; to strengthen a confidence which has never 
died out, has been the purpose of these remarks. 
Whether this feeling and confidence should once more 
give itself expression in the formal action of the denomi- 
nation is a question that will be answered variously. But 
will not all agree that the action of the denomination at 
Cambridge, and Boston, and Saybrook, has never been 
repudiated ; that if Congregationalism has any corporate 
existence, and any organic life, by which it maintains its 
identity from generation to generation, it is still com- 
mitted to the symbols that were then and there made 
public. Shall we not do well, then, to cherish the recol- 
lection of what was done when the foundations of the 
Puritan church were laid in this Western world ? Asso- 
ciated and assembled, as we are, to collect and preserve 
the memorials of our denominational history, ought we 
not, more than ever, to think of, and prize, that system of 
truth which has made us historic, which has given us our 
position among the churches of Christ in the world, which 
is the secret of our active and tenacious vitality, and with- 
out which we should long ago have crumbled and disap- 
peared like the seven churches of Asia ? 



CLERICAL EDUCATION* 



" How shall they preach, except they be sent % " is the 
concluding question,, in a series of interrogatories designed 
to show that Christianity, as a universal religion, should 
obtain a universal proclamation. The substance of this 
religion, St. Paul affirms to be, simple faith in the work 
of Christ. " If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the 
Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath 
raised him from the dead " — if thou shalt simply and 
cordially appropriate what is involved in that death — 
" thou shalt be saved." The range of this religion, he 
teaches, is the whole world of mankind. " There is no 
difference between the Jew and the Greek ; for the same 
Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him. For 
whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be 
saved." These two facts being established, it follows im- 
mediately that this religion, so simple in its nature, and so 
catholic in its aim, should be preached to every human 
being. Were Christianity complicated and difficult to be 
understood and complied with, or were it designed for 
only a particular people or class of mankind, the contrary 
inference would be drawn. The proclamation of an ab- 
struse or esoteric truth should be cautious and circumspect. 

*A discourse before the American Education Society, May 28, 1855. 



356 CLERICAL EDUCATION. 

There should be initiation, and secret instruction, in case 
the religion is complex and sectarian. But when, as in 
the instance of the Christian religion, the essential truth 
of a system is simple as childhood, and to be received by 
a child's act, and when it is designed for all ages, sexes, 
conditions, classes, and nationalities of mankind, its pro- 
mulgation ought to be as loud as thunder and free as the 
winds. The sound of it should go out through all the 
earth, and its utterance to the end of the world. 

But the question implies that the Christian religion is 
not self -proclaiming. As a revelation of truth, it had 
been furnished solely by God. As a plan and work of 
redemption, there had been no co-operation of man. The 
Deity imparted a body of knowledge, made an atonement 
for sin, and poured out supernatural influences, by himself 
alone ; and in reference to all this substance and founda- 
tion, man was neither taken into counsel nor permitted to 
assist. As truth and as fact, Christianity originated from 
another sphere than the human, and is the pure product 
and gift and work of God alone. 

Yet, though having such a transcendent origin, and being 
so perfect in its nature, its Author made no supernatural 
provision for its spread among the nations and down the 
ages. Under the arrangements of Providence, this super- 
natural religion is as dependent upon the agency of man, 
for its extension, as if it were a merely human production. 
The heavenly treasure is committed to earthen vessels ; 
and Christianity, though a heaven-derived and perfect 
system, is compelled by its great Author to rely for its 
diffusion among mankind upon the very same contingen- 
cies by which literatures, sciences, arts, and all earth-born 
knowledges, are disseminated and perpetuated. God 
might have sent twelve legions of angels to proclaim the 
truth, with their eyes of light and tongues of flame. He 






CLERICAL EDUCATION. 357 

might nave continued to train up preachers to the end of 
time, by his own direct inspiration and personal instruc- 
tions, as he did in the beginning. He might have intrust- 
ed the heavenly treasure to a celestial vessel and agent. 
But he did not. He left this wonderful system of truth, 
which he had been slowly revealing for four thousand 
years, by prophecy, by type, by miracle, by institute and 
dispensation, and which he finally crowned and perfected 
by the incarnation of his Son : he left this wonderful re- 
ligion, thus originated and constructed, to be diffused 
among the race for whose benefit it had come into exist- 
ence by their feeble and unreliable agency. It looks as 
if the Architect were deserting his work ; as if this stupen- 
dous plan, originating in the counsels of eternity, and 
moving forward through some centuries of time with 
energy and success, were suddenly dismissed to a lame and 
impotent conclusion. As the Gospels and Epistles them- 
selves, in the early ages of the church, were left floating 
about on a few manuscripts, like the future legislator in 
the ark of rushes on the Nile, so that, as we look back, we 
wonder that the archives of our faith were preserved at all 
in those ages of fire and blood and vapor of smoke, so has 
the Christian religion been committed to an agency, in 
itself considered, utterly feeble and totally unreliable, and 
as we look back over the history of Christianity, we won- 
der that the world has known and felt so much of its in- 
fluence as it has. The doctrines of a special divine influ- 
ence, and a special superintending Providence, alone, 
dispel our wonder in each of these instances. The human 
agent worked, and worked well, notwithstanding his in- 
trinsic unfitness and unreliableness, because God worked 
in him to will and to do. The events and contingencies 
of this earthly state, the adverse events and unexpected 
contingencies of human history, conspired to the exten- 



358 CLERICAL EDUCATION. 

sion of the Christian religion, instead of its overthrow, 
because a divine Arm was outstretched to uphold and 
guide the vessel through the billows. 

These reflections, suggested by the interrogatory of St. 
Paul, lead to the consideration of some reasons why the 
Church should address itself to the particular work of 
Clerical Training and Education. 

1. The first reason is found in the fact, that unless the 
churches devote their energies and means to this special 
object, their clergy will not be a sufficiently numerous 
profession. 

It is never safe, nor prudent, to rely upon the operation 
of extraordinary causes, in laying a plan for permanent 
operations. Inducements and impulses need to be em- 
ployed, to elicit the latent disposition and power, other- 
wise this latency will continue to slumber. Hence the 
church within its own sphere, like the world within its, 
must make use of average materials, and ordinary appli- 
ances, in carrying forward the enterprise that has been 
committed to it. The common piety of a regenerated 
man, and not the uncommon holiness of a seraph, is the 
material which the church should take and mould into the 
earthen vessels that are to hold the treasure. The churches 
cannot, wisely or successfully, insist upon a degree of 
piety, in the Christian young men of this age or of any 
age, so intense and angelic as to carry them over all ob- 
stacles, and without any stimulus or encouragement, into 
the Christian ministry. Means and facilities for clerical 
education will never be rendered unnecessary, by a zeal 
like that of some few missionaries, in some few periods of 
church history, who penetrated heathenism alone and un- 
assisted, and who laid down and died in the beginning of 



CLERICAL EDUCATION. 359 

their career; the zeal of God's house having literally 
eaten them up. Extremes are dangerous, and those are 
not the best periods in the history of the church, when 
remarkable apathy in the mass of Christians was both 
supplemented and shamed by the intense self-martyrdom 
of a few individuals. For the church to coldly look on ? 
while the youthful warrior fights his way through a con- 
flict which a little self-denial on the part of his fellow- 
Christians might have spared him, is unwise and unchris- 
tian. All that we should expect or demand, in candidates 
for the ministry, is a grade and type of Christian charac- 
ter that originates in the bosom of the church itself, pos- 
sesses the average excellencies and deficiencies, and needs 
the stimulus and purification of ordinary means and ap- 
pliances. 

Some thirty or forty years ago, that remarkable and in- 
teresting man, Edward Irving, was called to preach a ser- 
mon before the London Missionary Society. Seizing 
rankly upon the example of our Lord, who sent out the 
seventy without purse or scrip, and forgetting the altered 
circumstances of both the church and the world, and par- 
ticularly the absence of those miraculous gifts with which 
those first missionaries were endowed, he deduced the 
doctrine, that the whole modern missionary movement 
ought to be left to the spontaneous, unorganized, unaided 
energy and vehemence of the individual Christian mind. 
On his scheme, the church had a right to demand that 
the missionary, in devotedness and zeal for God, tower 
high above the level of clerical character ; that the piety 
of the herald of the cross should be of such an extraordi- 
nary type, that it would bear the missionary, as on the 
wings of the wind, over land and sea, through all species 
of populations, and inspire him with a pentecostal energy 
by which he should electrify and overcome the masses of 



360 CLERICAL EDUCATION. 

heathenism. He announced this theory with a wonderful 
boldness and energy, and threw over it, and all about it ; 
the sheen and the splendor of a most affluent imagination, 
and a most gorgeous rhetoric, and set the whole all aglow 
with the fire of an undoubted zeal for God and human 
salvation. 

But no wise man, from that day to this, has supposed 
that Christian missions can be successfully carried forward 
on such a scheme. The church cannot rely upon the unu- 
sual in feeling, and the extraordinary in character, because, 
jf for no other reason, it is not to be found in sufficient 
abundance for working purposes. It must rely upon an 
average piety, and fill out what is lacking, by wise and 
judicious means and appliances. 

It is, consequently, not to be expected, that the attention 
of Christian young men, in sufficient numbers, will be 
turned to the work of the ministry, unless facilities are 
afforded by the church for access to this work. A few 
men, of remarkable holiness and zeal, might perhaps have 
crowded and forced their way into ministerial life, by 
individual and unaided effort; but the greater portion of 
the present generation of clergymen, who are now actually 
preaching the word, would not be so doing, if the church 
had not, by its organizations and charitable foundations, 
and literary and theological institutions, thrown up a high- 
way into the Christian ministry, and wooed them on into 
it. And this fact is not specially derogatory to the cleri- 
cal profession. It implies, indeed, that the clerical mind 
is not yet filled with a cherub's knowledge of eternal 
things, and a seraph's love for them. But neither is the 
church at large. Both clergy and laity have a common 
type of piety, which, in each case alike, requires aids, 
and encouragements, and stimulants, and in neither 
case, alike, can be rightfully called upon to exercise a 






CLERICAL EDUCATION. 361 

superhuman virtue, that the other may exercise none at 
all. 

The Christian young man, therefore, at certain turning- 
points in his educational career, needs an impulse to carry 
him over into the ministry. His mind is balancing ; and 
if, in this mental state, he sees the church indifferent and 
apathetic, in reference to that self-denying profession 
whose claims he is weighing, he will, in too many instances, 
conclude that a layman's- position is not incompatible with 
his soul's salvation. 

If, as he is hesitating in respect to the course he should 
pursue, he casts his eye forward, and sees that even the 
years of proposed professional study will be overhung, not 
merely with poverty but increasing embarrassments, and 
then usher him into the most anxious and laborious and 
ill-paid of occupations; if he sees that this obstacle, in the 
outset, is owing to the neglect, or indifference, of that very 
Christian church to whose service he proposes to devote 
himself, what is more natural than that, in a majority of 
cases, the professedly and really pious young man slides 
down to a lower level of character and feeling, and enters 
upon some other course of life and labor ? But if, on the 
other hand, as he looks off in this hour of hesitation, he 
sees that the wise and good, of the past and the present, 
have smoothed the pathway to the laborious but noble 
field of clerical effort, and, by their institutions and schol- 
arships, and benevolent societies, and faculties of instruc- 
tion, and libraries of books, have made all things ready to 
his hand, and have placed a professional training within 
his reach ; if, we say, all this preparation and emphatic 
invitation, on the part of the churches, strike the mind of 
the hesitating young man at this crisis in his history, how 
very few truly religious young men would or could find 
excuses for declining the clerical profession. 
16 



362 CLERICAL EDUCATION. 

In so far, therefore, as the church addresses itself to the 
work of raising up a ministry, by furnishing ample means 
and apparatus for a professional education, does it take 
the surest method of securing a numerous clergy ; a pro- 
fession sufficiently well stocked to meet the ever-increasing 
demand, in this country and age, for religious teachers. 
And, just in proportion as it leaves the pathway to min- 
isterial life full of obstructions, by neglecting to pro- 
vide the necessary facilities for clerical education, will it 
lose the service of a great number, who, under these 
slight outward influences and impulses from benevolent 
assistance, would have entered the ministry, and have 
proved good and faithful laborers in the vineyard of the 
Lord. 

It may be, and has been, urged as an objection to this 
multiplication of facilities for entrance into the ministry, 
that the clerical profession will become secularized by the 
admission of large numbers who are unwilling to exercise 
that fair and acknowledged degree of self-denial which is 
required in a true minister of Jesus Christ. There is, 
however, little danger under the voluntary system of cler- 
ical support, that this will be the case. Were there in 
this country a rich and powerful ecclesiastical establish- 
ment, to provide amply for the wants of the incumbents 
of the sacred office when they enter it, there might, per- 
haps, be some need of rendering the access to the profes- 
sion as difficult as possible. But when, as is the case in 
this country, the clergyman, immediately on leaving his 
professional course, enters upon a career for life of the 
most trying and self -sacrificing character, surely the objec- 
tion above-mentioned loses all its force. The few brief 
years of preparatory study ought, therefore, to be rendered 
as pleasant and free from anxiety as possible, in order that 
the mind may enter, with boldness, and buoyancy, and 



CLERICAL EDUCATION. 363 

courage, upon that ministerial life which becomes more 
and more solemn, and more and more weighty, to the end 
of it. The church need be under no concern lest, by a 
full educational treasury, and the multiplication of endow- 
ments and scholarships, by the accumulation of books and 
all the means of clerical training, it shall be instrumental 
of introducing too many men into the Christian ministry. 
There is a work for life to follow the professional course 
that will be a sufficient check upon any apprehended glut 
of clergymen. The few years of education are soon passed, 
and the long, long years of service begin. Perhaps there 
is no transition more marked than that from the college 
and professional school into the parish. The youthful 
mind has been spending a decennium in the still air of 
delightful studies, under the guidance of accomplished 
teachers, and in association with kindred youthful minds. 
It has been free from care. It has felt only those private 
responsibilities, which relate to the keeping of one's own 
heart, and the education of one's own mind. But now 
it passes into public life. The youthful disciple becomes 
a religious teacher, is laden with the cares and responsi- 
bilities of a great profession, and finds that the days of 
spirited and hopeful self -education are passed, and the 
days of persevering, arduous toil for others have come. 
Looking at this transition from a merely human point of 
view, there is none more fitted to deter. Were there no 
higher considerations of usefulness to man and of glory to 
God, how many a youthful mind would start back at the 
change, and even on the very threshold of the profession, 
return to the more inviting fields of literature and author- 
ship, or the more dazzling and exciting arenas of the bar 
and the senate-house. All that Wordsworth tells us of 
the passage from the early and romantic age of human 
life, to the sober gray realism of its later periods, applies, 



364: CLERICAL EDUCATION. 

with very deep truth and force, to the transition from the 
days of professional training, to the days of professional 
toil. So far as this world is concerned, the journey is ever 
" farther from the East," and the light fades more and 
more into that of " common day." 

In the great and toilsome worh, then, which is to follow 
the professional course, and which must be performed 
with no assistance from institutions and establishments, but 
solely in self-denial, and faith, and prayer; in the weight 
and solemnity of the ministerial profession itself, we find 
the check needed to prevent the indolent, the ambitious, 
and the irreligious, from availing themselves of the intro- 
ductory facilities of the professional course. 

Let, then, the church, by making the avenue to ministe- 
rial labor as broad and pleasant as possible, while it leaves 
the labor itself as toilsome and as self-denying as God 
in his providence has seen fit to constitute it, elicit the 
greatest possible amount of clerical talent, get it committed 
to the clerical profession, and thus train up the greatest 
possible number of clergymen. 

2. The second reason why the church should address 
itself to the special work of ministerial education, is found 
in the fact, that without such patronage and assistance the 
ministry will not be a sufficiently learned profession. We 
shall here employ the term "learning" in its widest sig- 
nification, and under this head shall discuss several topics, 
some of which pertain to the literary, and some of them 
to the theological education of the clergyman. 

Taking up, in the first place, the conditions of learning, 
we shall see the need of a special attention and assistance 
on the part of the churches. Learning depends upon 
these three conditions : first, upon freedom from mental 
distraction and task- work, during the period of study ; 



CLERICAL EDUCATION. 365 

secondly, upon thorough teachers and the discipline of 
a curriculum; and, thirdly, upon access to large libra- 
ries. 

During the period of study, the mind requires to be 
calm and unembarrassed, in order that it may give its 
powers a single direction and concentrate them upon 
a single point. The whirl of business, and the excitement 
of gay life are unfavorable to scholarship, even in case 
there be no exacting demands made upon the student's 
mind and time. Hence, the cloister life of the middle 
ages was far less injurious to the scholarship of that 
period, than it was to its piety. In all ages, tranquil- 
lity and serenity have been found favorable to culture, 
even though other interests may have suffered from a 
life of undue seclusion. 

But when, in addition to the lack of scholastic retire- 
ment during the years of professional training, there 
is added the laborious occupation of the mind in other 
pursuits than those of study and self-discipline, great 
injury must result to the ultimate professional power and 
stamina of the individual. He, who is compelled to earn 
his daily bread while laying the foundations upon which 
the future structure of ministerial labor is to be reared, 
will find, to his regret, when he comes to perform that 
life-long service, and feel that unintermittent draught 
upon his ideas, that he was obliged to be hasty and 
superficial at a point, where, of all, there is need of 
slowness and thoroughness. The human mind cannot 
well do two things at once, and, therefore, from the 
beginning to the end of the course of clerical education, 
there ought to be secured to the rising ministry, the 
greatest possible freedom from the excitement of gay and 
secular life, and the exactions of poverty. Only in aca- 
demical quiet and unembarrassed finances, can the foun- 



366 CLEEICAL EDUCATION. 

dations of a broad, deep, and powerful clerical scholar- 
ship be laid. 

Again, the influence of a faculty and a curriculum is 
needed, in order to the existence of a learned ministry. 
Doubtless much thorough discipline in a single direction, 
and with respect to a single topic, may be obtained from 
a single strong and original mind. The minds that were 
trained in the last century, in the study-chambers of the 
distinguished divines of New England, were very able in 
regard to their specialty, or that of their teacher. They 
had their forte, and they had their foible. For it is 
impossible that a single mind should be able to impart 
the entire encyclopaedic knowledge and discipline of a 
faculty of learned men, each of whom devotes himself to 
a particular department, while he co-works with his asso- 
ciates. It is impossible that the professional culture 
which flows out from a single fountain, however ebulli- 
ent, should exhibit the powerful and broad current that 
results from the union of head- waters. It was for this 
reason that the churches were compelled, so soon as the 
colleges of the land ceased to impart that clerical train- 
ing, for the sake of which they were first founded, to 
establish the ecclesiastical professional school, and subject 
the rising ministry to the influence of a faculty and a 
curriculum. 

And, lastly, a learned profession can live only in the 
atmosphere of libraries. The influence of large collec- 
tions of books, upon both faculties and students, is a sub- 
ject deserving the increasing attention of all who are 
interested in the formation of a yet more thorough cul- 
ture in our lively age and country. The consciousness of 
ignorance, which is generated by an exhibition upon the 
shelves of a library of what the human mind has accom- 
plished in the past, is one of the sharpest spurs to person- 



CLEEIOAL EDUCATION. 367 

al investigation ; is one of the keenest corrosives of intel- 
lectual conceit and vain-glorying. And the professional 
mind, equally with the popular, needs to come under this 
influence : for it is as true in the intellectual sphere, as it 
is in the moral, that he that humbleth himself shall 
be exalted. 

These conditions of thorough scholarship can be se- 
cured to the candidate for the ministry only by the 
church at large. The individual cannot originate and 
maintain them for himself, any more than he can origi- 
nate courts of law, and juries, and benches of judges. 
The institutions and endowments requisite in order to the 
very existence of a clerical discipline are the proper care 
of the churches ; and just in proportion as any particular 
branch of the church fosters or neglects them, will be the 
strength, or the weakness, of its clerical body. 

But the strength of this argument, from the fact that 
the ministry will not be a learned body unless it is sup- 
plied with the conditions of scholarship, is greatly en- 
hanced, as soon as we consider one or two peculiarities 
in the present state of the world, which create an unusual 
necessity for thorough learning and discipline in the cleri- 
cal profession. It is to this part of the plea that we would 
invite particular attention. 

In the first place, then, a very high mental discipline is 
required, at the present time, in order that preaching may 
be simple, plain, and powerful. It was a remark of Arch- 
bishop Usher to the clergy of his diocese, " It takes all our 
learning to be simple." To preach plain and simple, says 
Luther, is a great art. These statements are true ones, 
though paradoxical, and contrary to a common notion re- 
specting the influence of learning. It will however be 
found, that in proportion as the human mind becomes a 
profound master of the truth, it becomes able to unfold 



368 CLERICAL EDUCATION. 

and express it in such a manner, that the wayfaring man 
need not err, and also in such a way that the cultivated 
mind feels the very same influence from the actual verit} 7 . 
We see this illustrated in secular literature. The greatest 
minds, in any department, address the two extremes of 
human culture, as well as all the intermediates. Shaks- 
peare is the poet of the masses, and also of the " laureate 
fraternity " of poets. That homely sense, which speaks 
like a swain to the swain, and that ethereal discourse, 
which is the admiration and the despair of the cultivated 
reason and imagination, both alike, flow from a thorough 
apprehension and a perfect knowledge of man and of 
nature. Lord Bacon's understanding addresses both the 
peasant and the philosopher, because it grasped what it 
seized, and saw entirely through what it looked at. And, 
to come down to our own time and country, and into a 
department that more than any other is both practical and 
popular, how powerfully does the eloquence of Webster 
affect all grades of intelligence, because it sprang, so uni- 
formly, out of an entire mastery of the subject. In each 
of these instances there was learning, in the sense of clear 
and thorough knowledge. From whatever source it be 
derived ; whether from intercourse with man and self, or 
whether it is drawn more immediately from books; if 
there be a clear understanding, a perfect mastery, there 
will be plainness ; and if there be plainness, there will be 
power. 

In no sphere is there greater need of this learned plain- 
ness than in religion, and especially in no age more than 
our own. The public mind is now distracted by a variety 
of information. It has read and heard too much. It is 
discursive, and disinclined to ponder upon fundamental 
truths. Consequently, simplicity, depth, and clearness, are 
qualities specially required in the public religious address 



CLERICAL EDUCATION. 369 

of the day, in order that men may be called back from 
this wandering over a large surface, and induced to take 
a descending, instead of an expatiating, method. Never 
did man more need to be brought back to his individuality, 
which is a very simple thing, and to his few relations to 
God, which are yet more simple, than now. Even good 
men find, upon their death-beds, that they have been too 
discursive, even in their religious study and experience. 
Said a dying theologian, "My theology is now reduced to 
these two points, that I am a guilty sinner, and that the 
blood of Christ expiates human guilt." But if the reli- 
gious and theological mind finds that it is unduly inclined 
to career over large spaces, and examine curiously into 
collateral topics, to the neglect of the vitalities and sim- 
plicities of faith, and of life, what shall be said of that 
secular mind, which, in this age of new discoveries, and 
vast accumulations of facts, roams over all this oceanic 
expanse, but finds no time for soundings ? 

In this connection, is it not natural to query, whether 
even the mind of the church has not been too much dis- 
tracted by that large and important class of subjects which 
fall within the sphere of Ethics, as distinguished from 
that of Christianity? Whether the whole great subject 
of Keform has not been made to yield up such a mass of 
topics, and such an influx of ideas and sentiments, as to 
deluge the mind, and leave no room for the distinctively 
religious topics of sin and guilt, of atonement and regen- 
eration, of faith and repentance, of hope and of love % 
Has not this variety of topics and of information, drawn 
from the ethical rather than the evangelical domain, 
brought the public mind into such a confused condition, 
that it needs, more than ever, to be brought back to the 
few and simple truths of the gospel and godliness % 

But how is this to be done % Not by mere fault-finding, 
16* 



370 CLERICAL EDUCATION. 

and moaiing over this unfavorable state of the case, but 
by a cheerful, manlike, and powerful method. The Chris- 
tian religion does not whine over human nature. Its 
meekness and sorrow are not pusillanimity, and, in the 
phrase of Thomas Paine, " the spirit of a spaniel." The 
Lamb of God is also the Lion of the tribe of Judah ; and 
while Christianity, with a yearning love for human wel- 
fare, utters its tender : " Come unto me, all ye that are 
weary and heavy laden," it also utters its high and au- 
thoritative : " He that belie veth and is baptized shall be 
saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned." A 
calm, uncomplaining, and commanding tone, should there- 
fore ever be preserved by the Christian ministry, in the 
midst of all the waywardness and self -ignorance of the 
generations of men. 

Not, then, by lamentations over the present, and fore- 
bodings in reference to the future, but by such a clear, 
bold, and penetrating statement of the truth that slays, and 
the truth that makes alive, is the altered mood and* ten- 
dency to be brought about in the public mind. When the 
" commandment " shall " come," with clearness, and plain- 
ness, and power, all these secondary truths, now unduly 
occupying the attention, will, of themselves, fall back into 
their proper places, in the thought and feeling of both the 
church and congregation. 

But this implies no slender discipline of head and heart 
in the clergyman. It requires a most learned, and a most 
spiritual mind ; a clergy full of evangelical ideas, and full 
of vital energies ; the eye of the hawk, and the fire therein ; 
the eye of the dove, and the love therein. For the auditor 
will not leave that animated arena which is now engaging 
and exacting his powers, unless there be a substitute ; 
unless another realm, of vaster solemnity and grandeur, is 
opened upon him. The streets of Vanity Fair will nevef 



CLEEICAL EDUCATION. 371 

be deserted until eternity, in all its terrors and splendors, 
be actually made to dawn upon them. The hearer will 
not leave his spirited careerings over universal space, and 
sink a narrow dark shaft into the depths of his own heart, 
unless his religious teacher actually goes before him, bring- 
ing him to consciousness, and interpreting to him his own 
perishing religious necessities. 

The preacher, consequently, must have a masterly knowl- 
edge of gospel doctrines. He must know them with thor- 
oughness, so that he can make them come into actual con- 
tact with the human mind. Then there will be an effect. 
Bring the human mind, and especially the sinful human 
mind, into vivid connection with the bare, real, single, 
simple, verity, and the result is like that of the mingling 
and war of the elements in the old cosmogonies. But the 
power of thus handling the few and simple truths of Chris- 
tianity rests, so far as it rests upon a human foundation, 
upon discipline, deep, clear, and persevering. The troths 
of Christianity are few in number, but vast in their capa- 
cities and implications. Hence a profound, rather than a 
discursive talent, is required in him who is to proclaim 
them. He who cannot say the same thing in a variety of 
modes is not qualified for the work of the ministry. He 
who cannot find the new in the old is not fit to preach the 
gospel. If we examine the preaching of the great and 
evangelical divines of the church, in all ages, we find but 
one general strain and tone. Everything is tinged with 
sin and redemption. The fall and the recovery of the 
human soul, paradise lost and paradise regained, are the 
substance of their sermonizing. Like some of the great 
painters, they are monochromatic ; they employ only 
one principal color. And yet there is variety in this 
unity. For the Christian mind never tires of these 
repeated lessons from them, any more than it does of 



372 CLERICAL EDUCATION. 

the often-reiterated teachings of Scripture itself. The 
one subject is ever new and fresh. Be it sin, or be it re- 
demption, it is treated thoroughly, and brought into direct 
contact with the heart and experience, and wherever this 
is done there is freshness. The peculiar interest of the 
public mind in the subject of religion, during an effusion 
of the Holy Spirit, does not spring from the novelty, or 
the number, of the truths presented to it. They are the 
same old and simple doctrines, and exhibited with even 
less of collateral matter than common. For it is wonder- 
ful to observe how both hearer and preacher, at such 
times, are dissatisfied with everything that is not distinct- 
ively and intensely evangelical. Heretofore, perhaps, both 
parties had preferred to expatiate over that border-land 
which skirts the legitimate field of sermonizing, in order 
to find topics of intellectual entertainment. But now a 
meaning and power are discovered, in the few and old 
truths of Scripture, which the whole varied, vivid universe 
of science, literature, and art cannot furnish. 

Now we freely concede, that the work of the Spirit is 
needed, in both preacher and hearer, in order that this in- 
terest in distinctively evangelical subjects may reach its 
highest form, and were the work of the Spirit our theme, 
we would insist upon this great truth. But at this time 
we are treating of human discipline, and speaking of 
those intellectual methods that are best adapted to favor 
the operation of the truth and the Spirit of God. And, 
speaking in this connection, we are bold in affirming that 
a learned and thorough theological discipline contributes 
to this simplicity in the subjects, and to this directness in 
the exhibition of them. Learning does make us plain and 
powerful teachers. A shallow education, arid a lively, 
but illogical mind, cannot find the elements of power in 
the doctrines of Jesus and the resurrection. Such are 



CLERICAL EDUCATION. 373 

compelled, by their undue discursiveness, and their lack 
of though tf ulness, to seek pulpit effect in a multitude of 
topics, and in novelty of themes. 

Again, in the second place, the existing, and the com- 
ing conflict with educated skepticism, calls for a ministry 
that has been made learned, by the discipline of institu- 
tions and curriculums. Modern infidelity assumes a 
greater variety of forms than the ancient, although its 
essential character remains the same. We should expect 
this would be the case in an age which, as we have already 
observed, is inclined to variety rather than to unity, in all 
its manifestations. The infidelity which the ministry has 
to combat is, as usual, protean ; and when refuted in one 
shape, instantaneously reappears in another. One of its 
most specious forms, and the only one we have time to 
notice, springs out of the connection of natural religion 
with revealed. It involves the relation of Ethics to Chris- 
tianity. In our country, in particular, this form of infi- 
delity associates itself, parasitically, with the reformation 
of society, and thereby becomes doubly dangerous to the 
Christian church, which ever takes a deep interest in the 
removal of social evils. That the reconstruction of soci- 
ety is made to supersede the regeneration of the individ- 
ual is not the whole, or the worst. Reform is not merely 
divorced from evangelical Christianity, but is at enmity 
with it. A class of minds are loudly proclaiming the 
truths of ethics and natural religion, from beneath the 
sounding-board of Reform, for whom the doctrine of the 
cross is a most hateful offence, and whose temper towards 
those peculiar truths which are the life and life-blood of 
the Christian Religion, is marked by a malignity, and a 
virulence, which finds its parallel only in the first, and 
original " generation of vipers." 

Nothing but learning in the clergy can overmaster this 



374 CLERICAL EDUCATION. 

error. Nothing but broad scholarship, profound insight, 
and power of distinct statement can exhibit the true func- 
tions of both Ethics and the Gospel, and carry the public 
mind against this half-understanding of the enemy of 
Christianity, and his covert attack. For the opponent of 
the ministry, and the gospel, now plants himself upon 
Ethics, and not upon mere, sheer, sensual infidelity. He 
professes a moral end and aim, and his own character, in 
most instances, is moral and proud. He professes to call 
men back, from a mysterious and complicated religion, to 
the few first principles of justice, and virtue, and benevo- 
lence. He derives no little authority and influence, be- 
fore the judgment and conscience of men, because he 
advocates the claims of the great and noble department 
of moral philosophy. Hence the clergyman, in this age 
more than in any other, must be able to draw the line 
between morality and religion, and especially to make men 
see what all history teaches, that there is no self-realizing 
power in moralism ; that all this Ethics must follow in 
the rear of evangelical Christianity, in order to be opera- 
tive among mankind. Men need life, renovating and 
sanctifying life from God ; and not merely light from 
nature and reason, or even from revelation ; for the Bible 
itself is powerless without the Holy Ghost. The truths 
of ethics and natural religion can become the ruling prin- 
ciples of individual and social life, only in case the indi- 
vidual and society come under the power of revealed reli- 
gion. Ethical justice, and ethical truth, and ethical 
benevolence, cannot prevail on the earth, except as evan- 
gelical faith, and hope, and love, renovate human nature 
in its fountains. Only through the vitality and regenera- 
tion of Christianity can the cold, clear reason of ethics be 
transmuted into feeling, and be realized among mankind. 
Only the renewed soul can actually obey the hard and 



CLEEICAL EDUCATION. 375 

high law. Theorists are setting the Christian religion 
upon the same level with that of Confucius, because the 
Chinese sage taught the "golden rule." Suppose it to be 
true (which, however, we deny) that Confucius did teach 
the golden rule as clearly and as fully as Christ taught, it 
in the Sermon on the Mount, would this make Confucius 
equal to Jesus Christ ? It would, provided that Christ 
did no more than merely teach the rule. But he does far 
more than this. He imparts a disposition to obey the rule. 
This Confucius never did while upon earth, and has never 
done since he left it. It is easy enough to point to the 
north star — any child can do this. But to carry a human 
being to the north star is beyond the power of man. When 
Christ said to the paralytic: ''Arise, take up thy bed and 
walk," he empowered him to the act. He imparted a vital 
force that enabled the patient to do what he was com- 
manded to do. But when these natural religions of the 
globe, for which an equality with Christianity is claimed, 
say to the moral paralytic: "Do right," "Be perfect," 
they bestow no spiritual power along with the command, 
and hence accomplish nothing. 

It is surprising to see how this great difference between 
Christianity and the natural religions of the globe is over- 
looked in the contest now going on between naturalism 
and supernaturalism. The utmost that Confucius, Sakya- 
muni, and Socrates can do is to give good advice. They can- 
not incline and enable men to obey it. Socrates confesses 
this with sadness. It is the burden and grief of his soul 
that men will not hear, and that he has no power to move 
their hearts. But Jesus Christ possesses* this marvellous 
power. He can not only say to men : " Whatsoever ye 
would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them," 
but he can actually dispose them to do it. Men for centu- 
ries, of all grades of civilization and culture, have come 



376 CLERICAL EDUCATION. 

under the power of the gospel, and have found in them- 
selves a new heart. This is not theory, bnt fact. That 
Christianity possesses the wonderful power of originating 
character, and spiritually transforming men, is as certain 
as that magnetism affects iron. It is demonstrable by 
actual experiment and observation. St. Paul, speaking 
of the superiority of the gospel over the moral law, re- 
marks that, " if there had been a law given which could 
have given life, verily, righteousness should have been by 
the law." Now this imparting of moral life is precisely 
what no religion but the Christian is competent to. If 
the human heart could have been inclined and persuaded 
to practise the golden rule by the mere teaching of the 
rule, by Confucius or any other mere teacher, there would 
be some color of reason for the assertion that Confucius 
and Christ are equals. But the human heart remains the 
same selfish and self-seeking thing from generation to gene- 
ration, until the Christian herald proclaims the religion of 
that redeeming Grod who says : " A new heart will I give 
you, and a new spirit will I put within you ; and I will 
take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give 
you an heart of flesh." 

The infidelity of moralism, then, so covert and so spe- 
cious, calls loudly for an evangelical ministry that knows 
exactly the difference between the law and the gospel ; 
that can meet the opposer upon his own ground, and 
instead of vilifying ethics, and natural reason, and reli- 
gion, can apply their truths and principles so hotly and 
terribly to the human soul at variance with them, that 
they shall be a schoolmaster to lead it to Christianity. 
" Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do } T e not 
hear the law % The law is not of faith," it stands in no 
relation to mercy, " but the man that doeth them shall live 
by them." And the contrary follows inevitably : " The 



CLERICAL EDUCATION. 377 

man that doeth them not, shall die by them." It is 
because mankind have not obeyed the principles of natu- 
ral religion, and are under a curse and a bondage therefor, 
that the peculiar doctrines of revealed religion are needed ; 
and he who in this age, or any other, preaches the truths 
of natural reason and conscience, and there stops, preaches 
the eternal and inevitable damnation of the human soul. 
He may not know what he is doing. He may announce 
the ideas of ethics and natural religion, as evidence that 
human nature is upright, and needs no redemption, forget- 
ting that a Plato, a Plutarch, and a Cicero, found in the 
fact that they are in man's reason but not obeyed and 
realized in man's will, the most convincing evidence that 
humanity is at schism with itself, and therefore depraved 
and fallen, while they knew no mode of deliverance. He 
may expand these old and obvious doctrines of ethical 
morality, as something new and original with himself, for- 
getting that a single dialogue like the Phmdo, or a single 
tract like the De JVatura Deorum, contains more of the 
pure and dense reason of the finite mind than he has been 
able to flatten out into many volumes of essays and so- 
called sermons. He may suppose in all this, that he is 
dispensing with the necessity of revelation, and taking the 
most effectual method to destroy its influence among man- 
kind. But the well-disciplined Christian preacher can 
take all this asseveration respecting the immutability of 
ethical distinctions, and all this emphatic assertion of the 
sacredness and worth of justice and truth and benevolence 
and all the forms of virtue, and from it deduce man's 
perishing need of God's mercy and redemption. For 
where is the conformity to all these statutes and command- 
ments ? Who realizes these truths of natural conscience 
in his daily life ? Who will not be found guilty before 
the bar of natural religion, that is, the bar of his own con- 



378 CLERICAL EDUCATION. 

science ? Who will not need that atonement for failure to 
live up even to the light of nature which is the key to 
that sacrificial system which makes a part of all the more 
thoughtful and respectable religions of paganism ? 

The connection between natural and revealed religion 
is the point where the most dangerous infidelity of the 
time takes its stand ; and the ministry needs, more than 
ever, a profound and clear understanding of the distinc- 
tive character and relations of each, in order to meet the 
adroit attacks of enemies, to relieve the sincere doubts of 
inquiring minds, and more than all, to make the law, in 
all its forms, tributary to the gospel of Christ. But this 
power rests upon learning ; upon a profound acquaintance 
with what that learned Puritan, Theophilus Gale, denom- 
inates, " the wisdom of the Gentiles," and a yet more pro- 
found acquaintance with the wisdom of the Scriptures. 
Here is the whole broad field of human reason and divine 
revelation to be traversed, and nothing but that thorough 
understanding of their true meaning and mutual rela- 
tions, which characterized both the conforming and the 
non-conforming divines of England in the seventeenth 
century, will prepare the ministry of the present, and the 
coming age, to meet the skepticism present and to come. 
The English deism of that century and that age was 
learned, was able, was subtle. It contained all shades, 
from the lofty and virtuous deism of Lord Herbert of 
Cherbury, to the low and sensual deism of Mandeville. 
But it was thoroughly met by the Christian ministry of 
that century, because the truths of natural religion itself 
were more philosophically and correctly apprehended by 
the defenders of revelation, than they were by its oppo- 
nents. The Deist found that the Christian preacher was 
at home in the Pagan as well as in the Christian theology ; 
and, before the controversy was over, learned that by fai 



CLERICAL EDUCATION. 379 

the justest estimate of what the uninspired human mind 
is capable of doing, and of what it is incapable, is formed 
by the mind that occupies the higher point of view afforded 
by a supernatural revelation. The Deist discovered that 
John Howe had read Plato, and that Bishop Stillingfleel 
was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and that 
both alike, while the farthest possible from disparaging 
the just dues of reason and conscience, were able, con- 
vincingly, to show the powerlessness of both, in reference 
to the two great needs of human nature, the forgiveness 
of sins and the sanctification of the soul ; in reference, 
not to a mere illumination that like moonlight in nature 
warms nothing and stirs nothing, but to a deep central 
renovation and restoration to holiness and paradise, of a 
race that, for six thousand years, has had full opportunity 
to try the recuperative virtues supposed to inhere in the 
uninspired human mind and the unrenewed human will. 

We have, then, these two general reasons why the Church 
should address itself to the work of training a ministry : 
first, that the ministry may be sufficiently numerous to 
supply the increasing demands for public religious 
teachers ; and, secondly, that the ministry may be suffi- 
ciently disciplined, to exhibit the few and simple doc- 
trines of Christianity in a plain, fresh, and powerful 
manner to the general understanding, and sufficiently 
learned to thwart the present attempt of infidelity to sub- 
stitute natural for revealed religion. 

There are other fundamental reasons for this procedure 
that might be urged, but we prefer to seize upon two 
strong points, and rest the plea upon them alone. The two 
considerations of number and of power in the ministry are 
sufficient to evince the duty of the church in respect to 
clerical education. We are the more ready to rest the case 
upon these two points, because they are both unusually 



380 CLEEICAL EDUCATION. 

practical, at this juncture. The opening of new nations 
to Christianity is destined to make a great demand for 
preachers of the Word during the next century. The 
indications now are that the un christianized world is sim- 
ultaneously waking up to a sense of its spiritual wants, and 
being thrown open to Christian enterprise. The heathen 
are ready and waiting to hear the living Word from the 
living tongue and eye. While, therefore, missionary 
schools and seminaries cannot safely be neglected, and 
will not be, it is becoming more evident every day that 
the number of preachers must be very greatly increased, 
so that, as in the apostolic age, Christianity may run like 
sacred fire over large spaces in short time. It is by 
preaching tours and missionary journeys, like those of the 
apostolic age, taking their start from the missionary sta- 
tion, that the world is to be evangelized. Companies and 
bands of heralds, penetrating in every direction, and carry- 
ing the truth to every hamlet and heart, will speedily be 
needed, if the church would see the millions who are now 
coming under the influences of civilization, also coming 
under the influences of Christianity. 

And, certainly, the other consideration which we have 
urged, viz., the fresh, vigorous power of the clergy, appeals 
with equal force to our minds, when we consider the pre- 
vailing type of intellectual culture. In speaking of cleri- 
cal learning, we have directed attention more to the 
material, than to the formal side of the subject, because 
the intellectual tendency of the age is unduly to the form. 
Art is outrunning science. Rhetoric is destroying logic, 
as in some previous ages logic destroyed rhetoric. Style, 
instead of being the pure and austerely beautiful embodi- 
ment of an idea and a truth and a logic that is greater and 
grander than itself, exists too much by itself, and for itself. 
There is not enough of argument in the sermon. Men are 



CLERICAL EDUCATION. 381 

not sufficiently reasoned with out of the Scriptures. 
Preaching is too often a play, and a display. It is not 
often enough a conflict of mind with mind, and a battle 
of the understanding of the preacher with that of the 
hearer. For the pulpit, like God, has a controversy with 
human nature. Hence the need and worth of scientific 
discipline. For this species of power springs from the 
rigor of a professional course ; is drawn from the nether 
fountains of philosophical and theological science. He 
who expects that mighty reasoners and men of command- 
ing power will be raised up without the discipline of 
institutions, and the learning of libraries, expects that the 
perturbations of the planets will be calculated without 
mathematics, and that the constellations of the skies will 
be mapped without observatories. Showy men, striking 
men, may be formed without the school or curriculum ; 
but strong men cannot be. 

The great majority of clergymen have received through 
the Church an amount and kind, of aid that decided their 
profession for them, and their own position within it. 
Subtract this ecclesiastical agency and influence, and you 
subtract in an untold manner from the sum total of the 
clerical agencies and influences now at work in society. If 
this is true of the past, it will hold true with emphasis of 
the future. The time is coming, and now is, when the 
interests of the church and of Christianity will require a 
far broader foundation, and a much ampler apparatus for 
clerical education than now exists. As our own country 
fills up with population, wealth, and human knowledge, 
and as the globe wheels up more and more of its dark 
sides to the eye of the philanthropist and the Christian, 
there will be needed a permanence and an affluence in 
educational facilities, such as exists in the church estab- 
lishments of the Old World. Suppose that all those f oun- 



382 CLERICAL EDUCATION. 

dations, and fellowships, and scholarships — all those edi- 
fices, and libraries, and museums, and faculties, and courses 
of instruction, which are radiating an influence from gen- 
eration after generation of students — could instantane- 
ously be transferred to the care and use of a church dis- 
connected from the state, and supported upon the volun- 
tary system, what a stream of fresh and energetic life 
would be poured through these veins and arteries, now 
clogged and in danger of ossification ! How much more 
evenly and impartially would the revenues be distributed, 
and how much more advantageously would the power 
of this great educational system and apparatus be ap- 
plied ! 

The Church, in this country, has now solved a problem, 
which, since the days of Constantine, had been deemed 
insoluble. It has convincingly proved, that Christian in- 
stitutions not only do not need the support of the state, 
but thrive best, when left to the spontaneous and free 
support of that individual Christian heart and mind which 
wants them and loves them. The doctrine of a self-sup- 
porting church, now, has less of doubt and difficulty over- 
hanging it, than the doctrine of a self-governing state. 
We think, and say, that the United States of America 
have convincingly proved, that a republic is not merely an 
ideal, but also a realizable form of government. We may 
be yet more confident, that the church of Christ in this 
country has irrefragably evinced the inherent and per- 
sistent power of vital Christianity to organize its own sim- 
ple forms, and supply its own few outward wants. Visi- 
ble churches die out of localities, far less often under the 
Voluntary System than under the Establishment. Go 
among the hills, where a sparse population wrings a bare 
livelihood from the thin and sterile soil, and you find a 
" feeble church," as it is called, but a church that never 



CLEEICAL EDUCATION. 383 

ceases to be among the hills, because it draws what life it 
has from free-will, and not from ancestral revenues. But 
how many a church, whose material, moneyed foundation 
dates back to the Plantagenets and the Tudors, has dis- 
appeared from the sum of national life and vital influ- 
ences, and exists, now, only as an investment in the funds, 
or the national debt, because the invisible church, in the 
outset, was not laden with its proper responsibility, and 
as a penalty, in the end, ceased to exist altogether as a 
moral force in the nation. 

It, therefore, now remains for the Church to complete 
what has been so well begun ; to arm this voluntary sys- 
tem with the powers and resources of an establishment ; 
to fill up its treasuries, that it may dispense with a liberal 
hand ; to endow its institutions, that it may promote its 
own growth and prosperity. For, in this instance, it is 
not one party who gives, and another who receives and 
disburses. It is the church, self-governing, self-support- 
ing, self-extending. It is a true evolution from centre to 
circumference, and back, by a reflex influence, from the 
periphery to the radiating point. There is no danger, 
therefore, that revenues will become too large, and the 
organization too complicated and massive ; for the giver 
is also the treasurer and the almoner, and will know 
when to stop. There is no danger of maladministration ; 
for they who administer, and they who endow, are both 
of one, and at one ; of one body, and at one object. 



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